Glen David Gold

Carter Beats the Devil is a marvelous, rolicking, sometimes frightening novel set in Prohibition era San Francisco, mostly, with occasional jaunts across the country and the world. Carter is based on a real magician and the acts he and fellow magicians who make appearances in the book including Houdini are based on those performed at the time. Glen David Gould hinges the story around the death of Warren G. Harding and also manages to involve Philo Farnsworth who invented television. I loved it from beginning to end.… (mer)

You cannot blame Gold for lacking ambition: this novel attempts to sum up the state of America during the late 19-teens, and in doing so he goes off on narrative tangents that seem tenuously connected. The two major events portrayed here are the birth of the Hollywood film industry and America's entry into WWI; both are important in that they are the beginnings of the U.S. as the dominant military and cultural power in the world, a state that we have become accustomed to in the modern era. Some of the characters are drawn better than others: Charlie Chaplin's pathos, woman troubles and genius are on brilliant display. Others veer more towards caricature, especially Hugo Black, who seems to be written into the novel to present a staged meeting between insular American old money and the (literally) dying Russian aristocracy. Gold's themes are large and subtly disseminated throughout the novel - but he asks patience on the part of the reader to see the big picture in the books final pages.… (mer)

This is a wonderful blending of fact and fiction, focusing on Charles Carter, a magician in the early part of the 20th Century. The inspiration for Gold's story, aka the jumping off point, is the somewhat suspicious death of President Warren G. Harding. From that moment of historical significance, Gold weaves an amazing tale full of wonder, as well as perseverance, grief, and hope. It also makes clear that a magic trick is not the same as an illusion, while continually reminding the reader of the importance of misdirection.

Because Harding, in the book, attended Carter's show shortly before he died, participating in the mysterious final act of illusion, a determined Secret Service agent becomes convinced Carter is somehow involved in the president's death, a plot thread that gives the story most of its tension. A digression to Carter's childhood and early career, leading up to Harding's death and beyond, gives the story its soul. Carter quickly became one of my favorite characters, someone I couldn't help but root for, with his almost childlike sense of joy and confidence that things will work out.

I'd barely read the first hundred pages before turning to the "Program Notes" at the back, then Googling new characters as they appeared so I could know which characters were based on actual people. And as a Marx Brothers fan, I got a thrill when, during the time Carter worked on a vaudeville circuit, a comedy act titled "Fun in Hi Skule" and therefore, knew the Marx Brothers would show up. In fact, Julius (Groucho) does show up with a small speaking role. And that's all I'll say about the many delights found in this book.

Writing about magic and illusions can't be easy, but Gold pulled it off spectacularly, grounding the story in believable characters, the ones based on reality and the ones created to fill out the story. This book is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read.… (mer)