Carter Beats the Devil

Another reread from over a decade ago. It was messy and meandering and glorious, just like a magic show. It was over-stimulating with plots that seem to go nowhere (and some of them don't) but it didn't matter, because sometimes big moonless nightskies can be as nice as (and necessary for!) spectacular fireworks.

At times the story read like a movie script, albeit one that would be difficult to adapt. I liked how the book took full advantage of the textual advantage in depicting magic ✨illusions✨. What a low-cost feast for the imagination and so much to imagine too!

Aside: (1) This came out around the same time as Kavalier and Clay, and it's a shame that this one is not as popular. It's definitely more sprawling and fun, perhaps more show more befitting of a historical fiction on magic. (2) The author was married to the Lovely Bones author! The early 2000s must have been a heady time for them. show less

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 show more 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. show less

If the drop dead gorgeous design doesn’t grab you (then you ain’t got no soul), the ingenious literary misdirections, red herrings, and almost unbearable excitement of this fictionalized account of real life magician Carter the Great should do the trick. I was riveted throughout. My heart starts racing just thinking about it all.

I've got to give Glen David Gold credit for looking for -- and finding -- a good story in some unexpected places. It's one thing to write a book of historical fiction that's set during the French Revolution, or the First World War, or some other well-publicized historical epoch. It's quite another to build your story about Warren G. Harding, fill it with vaudeville-era magicians not named "Harry Houdini" and Secret Service agents, and set it in Oakland, California. You can't accuse this author of choosing a well-trodden path, that's for sure. And he certainly knows his material: you'll learn a lot about the mechanics and theories of stage magic, the star-crossed twenty-ninth president, and the history of Northern California's second- show more (or maybe third-) most famous city.

And, at a sentence level, you can't call him a bad writer, either. His prose is fluid and flexible, and he imbues his subjects with a lively -- dare I say slightly magical? -- touch that keeps you turning the pages without flirting with pulp theatrics or cheap atmosphere. Gold does a more-than-creditable job of bringing his subjects to life, and, better yet, he skillfully evoking a time in which California still felt very much like a frontier of some sort. The Northern California described in this novel is still somewhat unformed, a place where eccentrics who'd struck it rich still had some room to spread their wings. But I felt that this book's eccentricity was, in a sense, both its strongest and weakest suit. "Carter Beats the Devil" features pirates, smugglers, an enchanting blind woman, a trained lion, a traveling magic show and much more. Its characters experience love and revenge and loss and betrayal and outrageous good fortune. Because Charles Carter, the book's namesake, still experiences a good deal of genuine sadness in his his life, you can't call "Carter Beats the Devil" camp, but some readers will find it a touch too whimsical. It might be no accident that it did quite well on the sales charts just a year before the tragedy that defined the first decades of the new century occurred: I'm not sure it would have fit the national mood after the towers fell. But this you might as well chalk up this criticism to personal preference: this one is, if not the most profound novel I've ever read, a ripping yarn by any reasonable definition. Be warned, though: at well over five hundred pages, it takes a while to get where it's going. Recommended if you suspect that the right author could combine all of the disparate plot elements above into a into one really good read. show less

Still reverberating from the smash ending. I kept laughing aloud as another callback was invoked and another expectation exploded. I was quite surprised to read in the afterward that (the Great) Charles Carter was a real person. The character was handled with so much knowing that I assumed he was a vivid fiction placed carefully in the historic setting. I enjoyed it as a visit to teens/twenties SF and Oakland. And the author's messages gave me pleasure: Recurrence is inevitable. Wonder is the purpose of life and it is the Devil who diverts us toward acceptance and fatigue. The only quibbles I'll mention are 1) that Charles' and James' father's outre interests are very important and then never mentioned again; 2) James and Tom's show more partnership is perhaps too modern. Really fun -- what great prose in the service of a truly creative and entertaining ride. show less

A fictionalized account of the life and times of Charles Carter, stage magician.

I am over the bloody moon about this book! I feel like Glen David Gold compiled a list of all my favourite things, (well, most of my favourite things), and turned it into a great, big, wallowsome story.

Wallowsome is the perfect word for it. I became deeply involved in the story, but I still could not read it quickly. I hunkered down with it for four days, during which I often wondered how it was that the book hadn’t yet ended. I mean, I’d been reading it forever, and so much had happened, and yet it just kept going and going and going. I’d start getting annoyed.

Then something absolutely wonderful would happen, and all my annoyance would melt away. I show more was glad the book was long and slow and wallowsome, because I didn’t really want to let go of Carter and his magical world.

The theatrics alone probably would’ve been enough for me. Carter’s a stage magician at a time when stage magic is in decline, so there’s scads of stuff about his struggles to keep his act up and running in the face of dwindling audiences and financial ruin. Gold makes it all come alive. Carter is a fantastic character; he snuck up on me, slowly but surely, until I was truly committed to him. I felt his love for the theatrical life, and I was desperate to see him succeed because I didn't want him to have to give up his dreams. Even though the Overture makes it clear that he'll someday become a headliner, Act I tricked me into forgetting that. I worried about him constantly.

Then on top of that, there’s a big mystery going on in the background, complete with dead presidents and technological marvels and killers who slaughter innocents with decks of playing cards. I don’t want to say too much more about that, because I don’t want to ruin it for all of you, but I was quite impressed with it.

And best of all, Gold manages to integrate all his storylines. I’ll tell you, I thought the odds were against him. I thought I was going to find at least one part of the book unsatisfying. I didn’t. I mean, he definitely pays more attention to some things than others, but it all ties together in the end. It all works.

There were also a couple of little things that I reacted to on a personal level. I’m big on anything that deals with family, and I loved the relationship between Carter and his brother, James. They’re such great siblings. I also loved that James’s sexuality is almost a non-issue. It was nice to see, especially since I'd just finished a book with some horribly homophobic content. And the period detail... oy vey, do I ever love stuff set in the 10’s and 20’s! (I won’t be able to say that soon. People will scratch their heads and wonder why I don’t just say, “I love stuff that’s set in modern times"). Finally, I loved the animals. Baby and Tug are both adorable.

So me, I’m pretty durned happy right about this book. It tickled me pink and delighted the hell out of me. I urge you to give it a go at your earliest convenience.

(A longer version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). show less

What fun! Like a great magic act, this book starts out deceptively simple and then the author starts adding new flourishes and complications until you're riveted, breathlessly waiting to see what he's going to pull out of the hat next. Don't worry; Gold provides a slap-bang finale (in which Carter beats not one but several devils) that should leave most readers cheering and shouting "Encore!" Though long at 450+ pages the story moves quickly: like Carter, this author has a good line of patter, knows how to put on a good show, and is adept at misdirection. Just one suggestion: book's publisher ought to consider moving the author's "afterword" to a "forward" so that readers appreciate from the outset just how exhaustively the events in show more the book have been researched, and how some of the more unbelievable/ outrageous bits turn out to be actual historical truth! show less