Wicked

Wicked by Gregory Maguire, 1996 HarperCollins

     Before Dorothy arrived in Oz and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba was a misfit child with green skin and a tendency toward violence. The daughter of a zealot father and licentious mother, Elphaba was the product of an affair and is raised mostly by the family nanny. Elphaba's younger sister, Nessarose, is not born green as she was, rather she is born without arms and must be constantly cared for. When Nessarose takes up her father's religious zeal she becomes his favorite, which haunts Elphaba to the end of her days. 

     Sixteen years later Elphaba is attending the women's college in Shiz when Galinda of the Arduenna Clan of Gillikin is placed as her roommate. Galinda is more interested in her social standing and its improvement than her green roommate until a fallout with her friends sparks an unlikely relationship between the two women. Elphaba teaches Galinda the worth of her mind and the two attend classes together where they join the movement against Animal (sentient and self-aware animals who have a genetic connection to humans which Elphaba explores throughout the book) discrimination under the despotic Wizard of Oz. When their professor, a Goat, is murdered Galinda becomes Glinda in his memory.

     Glinda and Elphaba create several friendships including Fiyero, a prince of Vinkus with strange blue diamonds etched over his body. Nessarose even joins them in Shiz, still doted upon by her father. The Headmistress of the women's college manipulates Elphaba, Glinda and Nessarose's education and eventually asks them to work on behalf of the Wizard of Oz. When Elphaba and Glinda attempt to forward their cause on behalf of Animals in a visit to the Emerald City the wizard brushes them off and the two women separate for several years. 

     Five years after their separation in the Emerald City Elphaba is still working on behalf of Animals. She encounters Fiyero and they begin an affiar. When he is taken by the Wizard's secret police and thought dead she flees to a mauntery where she meets the woman who created the potion which cured Elphaba's condition and took Nessarose's arms. The woman cares for Elphaba during the shock after Fiyero's presumed death and leads her to seven years later journey to Vinkus to see his family.  Elphaba travels with Liir, a boy to whom she claims no relation. 

     She attempts to tell his wife of their affair, but the woman will hear nothing of it. They stay on and Elphaba discovers a book written in English from Earth which teaches her magic; she is the only Ozian able to read it suggesting an ancestor from Earth. But problems rise at back home in Munchkinland--Nessarose has become a witch and in trying to speak to her for their father, Elphaba accidentally labels her the Wicked Witch of the East. 

     Life seems to be falling apart for Elphaba--upon her return to the Vinkus Fiyero's family has been kidnapped and she must save them. Then a house is dropped on Nessarose--with a little girl from Kansas inside--Elphaba is finally reunited with Glinda, but their homecoming is tainted when Elphaba discovers the girl has Nessarose's enchanted shoes. Elphaba begins to come unhinged, she discovers several secrets from her past, and after an encounter with the girl from Kansas is never seen again. 

     Maguire's story is the history behind Baum's The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch. Unlike Baum's story, Wicked is an adult novel exploring political upset and the power of an individual's history over their future. Elphaba is a passionate and severely misunderstood character, and Maguire gives her life and purpose behind the Wicked Witch of the West.