Now you see him, now you don’t. And now you see him like never before.
While I don’t claim to have read every book about magician/escapist extraordinaire Harry Houdini, it’s hard to imagine any would be as thorough, compelling and downright entertaining as THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI: THE MAKING OF AMERICA’S FIRST SUPERHERO, now in trade paperback.
Written by William Kalush and Larry Sloman, the warts-and-all bio explores the life, loves and feats of one of popular culture’s all-time greatest entertainers. Proof of this lies in that he remains a household name, some 80 years after his death, on the lips of people who never had a chance to see him in action.
And that’s a shame for us all, because the authors’ detailed accounts of his onstage exploits are enthralling. Whether he was escaping from handcuffs, prison cells or a six-feet-under coffin, it’s tough not to feel a tinge of remorse that Houdini was of another time.
So revered was this man – and, one should note, his heavily crafted legend – that some spectators actually thought he was imbued with super powers. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, whom one would expect to be a voice of reason as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, fell for the old “taking off my thumb” trick. Even my 2-year-old doesn’t buy that one.
As difficult as such naiveté is to believe nowadays, it speaks volumes to Houdini’s talent and innovation in keeping the public duped. As Kalush and Sloman put it so memorably, “He’d graduated magna cum laude from the university of deception.”
Much of it was learned beginning as a preteen, when Houdini left home to pursue a living and picked up tricks of the trade at various sideshows. Ultimately, he became the undisputed master of trickery – with his life on the line sometimes literally, but mostly only in appearance. Riches and fame contributed to an enlarged ego, but not so much that Houdini becomes repellent or fails to have the reader on his side at all times.
Hotheadedness was the least of his quirks, however. High on the list has to be his unnatural devotion to/deification of his mother. Besides dispelling myths, the authors also shed considerable light on Houdini’s oft-odd marriage, his affair with pal Jack London’s sexually liberated wife, his supposed spy missions for the federal government and – comprising much of the bio’s final chunk – his efforts to discredit spiritualists, some of whom were reputed to hide objects need for their seance ruses in their vaginas.
With cameos from the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson, THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI is certainly not lacking of color. Nor authority. –Rod Lott
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- Mindfreak: Secret Revelations
- Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece
- Making Friday the 13th: The Legend of Camp Blood
- The Secret Society of Demolition Writers
- In Secret Service
