Silverman's dense account documents the famous magician's lifelong quest to ensure his reputation—and his metamorphosis from Budapest-born Ehrich Weiss into Harry Houdini, the greatest illusionist of his age. Other biographies of Houdini (often influenced by their subject's pliant versions of events) have sensationalized and distorted the story of his impoverished immigrant childhood, early dime-museum career, and ascent to fame as the ``Handcuff King'' and virtuoso escape artist. Silverman, the Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer of Cotton Mather, approaches this familiar story with painstaking scrutiny and a bit of skepticism, focusing mainly on the magician's act and ego. In response to Houdini's claims of originality, Silverman demonstrates that there were many talented magicians working in the early 20th century. The escape-from-handcuffs act was, he demonstrates, very common. But Houdini transformed it, and the business of stage magic, with his genius for showmanship and relentless self-promotion. Houdini's talents as both performer and publicist get full recognition here: his carefully choreographed, athletic stage act and nimble patter, his open challenges to local locksmiths and staged jailbreaks (executed from the Midwest to Moscow), and finally, at the height of his career, such expensive illusions as making an elephant disappear. Houdini's interior life gets less coverage (although Silverman uncovers a brief affair with Jack London's widow). Houdini also dabbled less successfully as an aviator in Australia and as a movie star. In later life he found a second career as a debunker of mediums, attacking spiritualist frauds more aggressively than he had ever competed with rival magicians. Silverman manages the difficult trick of revealing many of Houdini's personal and professional secrets, penetrating to the reality behind many of the legends surrounding the man, while still leaving some of the mysteries concerning this ferociously driven figure intact. (100 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-016978-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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