As a kid, I ingested Houdini biographies like most kids ingest chocolate. As a kid, Houdini snatched up Robert Houdin biographies like most kids snatched up wallets. I found myself taunting my brother to handcuff, shackle and hog tie me to my own bedposts and lock the door just so I could escape through the bedroom window and go wash dishes until he found me again. Houdini contorted himself as often as the manager at The Welsh Circus allowed him to. I practiced card magic, he practiced card magic. In my youthful ignorance, I delved into spiritualism & communicating with the dead. When I grew up, I wanted to be just like… well… you get the picture.
“But Lance, you’re not Houdini! Get over yourself.”
No crap, Sherlock. (You might that joke in a moment). I recount my childhood superhero to show the deep, intimate connection I have with the whole of Eric Weiss’s life, from Hungarian Eric to Harry Houdini. Every bit of this book taught me about myself while it taught me about him. Beyond the straightjackets, metamorphoses and lock picks sits a melancholy choleric pensive who struggled between arrogance and honest ambition, service and secret service all his life. That’s me in a cracked nutshell.
Kalush and Sloman chisel away chunks of historical farces to hew a statue of Houdini both mysterious and masterful – one enlisted as a secret service agent and assassinated by spiritualists. They show Houdini making friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and then unfriending him just as fast. They show his consistent connections with the military, the secret service and the birth of aviation – Harry was, after all, the first to fly in Australia. They argue all of this in hypothetical non-stance that, rather than seeming passive, strengthens their argument. They leave the reader to decide the truth as well as to double check their COPIOUS footnotes for themselves. No wonder there’s a Secret Life of Houdini planned for the silver screen.
I think this marks the first book review on here I didn’t crack the book to write. It just came out. Yes the book’s big – as in 568 single-spaced biography pages big. Yes, sections dragged for me. Didn’t even care. Loved every second of it – even the handful of boring parts.
Five out of Five.
Great Entry ,I like Harry Houdini
Thanks, Jake. Yeah, I’m a super fan of that superman.
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