In self-defense and in a search for sanity and meaning, Carter discovers close-up magic, prestidigitation, and moves on to want to be the greatest magician ever, making elephants disappear and beating the devil at cards. The life of the well-to-do San Francisco classes is portrayed as stifling and dull - it's assumed that everyone wants to become wealthy, a banker, and live exactly like these smug types like the Carters. his monstrously self-involved and clearly bored mother talked to her nine-year-old son only about her psychological needs and left to pursue psychotherapy for two years (it was very trendy among the well-to-do to have neuroses in the 1890s apparently), and his father, a very distant and truly creepy man who collected torture implements abandoned his two sons for days during a major blizzard, assuming the two children would be fine, being watched over by the creepy caretaker.
Yikes? Is it in the water?Ĭharles Carter is a young magician who grew up in on of the most horrific fictional households I have encountered in recent years. (Imagine the conversations around the dinner table as Gold is married to writer Alice Seybold whose LOVELY BONES came out to great acclaim last year.) What are feeding these guys lately? In the last few years, some amazingly imaginative, sweeping creative first novels have shown up - THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY by Michael Chabon and now this first novel by Gold. It is very difficult for me to believe that this is Gold's first novel. You get pirates, magic acts (and you never do learn all the secrets), presidential deaths and their secrets (and conspiracies!), romance, history and thrills. And at over 400 pages, it is never boring. This historical tale, set primarily in the San Francisco area in the 1920s (and before, and after) is a spellbinding book. I'm not a fan of books that can be described as "romps" but oh, boy.
Apparently, rumors of poison and other forms of foul play have followed this event since 1923. And the mystery that is part of CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL is a doozy - who killed President Warren G. I've read it three times and expect to read in again, because it is so rich and interesting and compelling. No, no, wait! Come back! It's a really great book. That there is a mystery in this book is almost beside the point.
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