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Carter Beats the Devil [Hardcover]

Glen Gold , Glen David Gold
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)


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Book Description

September 2001
An amazing, richly evocative novel of magic and history in the tradition of E. L. Doctorow and Caleb Carr.

America in the 1920s was a nation obsessed with magic. Not just the kind performed in theaters and on stages across the country, but the magic of technology, science, and prosperity. Enter Charles Carter -- a.k.a. Carter the Great -- a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini. Fueled by a passion for magic that grew out of desperation and loneliness, Carter has become a legend in his own time. His thrilling act involves outrageous stunts carried out on elaborate sets before the most demanding audiences. But the most outrageous stunt of all stars none other than President Warren Harding and ends up nearly costing Carter the reputation he worked so hard to create. Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and enthusiasm of postwar, pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is the complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical -- and sometimes dangerous -- world, where illusion is everything, and everything is illusory.



Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Carter Beats the Devil, Glen David Gold subjects the past to the same wondrous transformations as the rabbit in a skilled illusionist's hat. Gold's debut novel opens with real-life magician Charles Carter executing a particularly grisly trick, using President Warren G. Harding as a volunteer. Shortly afterwards, Harding dies mysteriously in his San Francisco hotel room, and Carter is forced to flee the country. Or does he? It's only the first of many misdirections in a magical performance by Gold. In the course of subsequent pages, Carter finds himself pursued by the most hapless of FBI agents; falls in love with a beautiful, outspoken blind woman; and confronts an old nemesis bent on destroying him. Throw in countless stunning (and historically accurate) illusions, some beautifully rendered period detail, and historical figures like young inventor Philo T. Farnsworth and self-made millionaire Francis "Borax" Smith, and you have old-fashioned entertainment executed with a decidedly modern sensibility.

Gold has written for movies and TV, so it's no surprise that he delivers snappy, fast-paced dialogue and action scenes as expertly scripted as anything that's come out of Hollywood in years. Carter Beats the Devil has a mustachioed villain, chase scenes, a lion, miraculous escapes, even pirates, for God's sake. Yet none of this is as broadly drawn as it might sound: Gold's characters are driven by childhood sorrows and disappointments in love, just like the rest of us, and they're limned in clever, quicksilver prose. By turns suspenseful, moving, and magical, this is the historical novel to give to anyone who complains that contemporary fiction has lost the ability to both move and entertain. --Mary Park

From Publishers Weekly

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century San Francisco during the heyday of such legendary illusionists and escape artists as Harry Houdini, this thoroughly entertaining debut by an amateur magician with an M.F.A. in creative writing is a fanciful pastiche of history, fantasy and romance. The plot turns around the questionable circumstances surrounding scandal-beleaguered President Warren Harding's unexpected death on August 2, 1923, shortly after appearing on stage with the magician Carter the Great in San Francisco. Trapped without adults during the historic San Francisco blizzard of 1897, nine-year-old Charlie Carter discovers a book on magic in his father's library and entertains his brother with coin and card tricks. By the time he is 17, at the suggestion of famous "20-Mule Team" millionaire Borax Smith, Carter finds a booking with a seedy vaudeville troupe during summer vacation. Following graduation, he procures a more reputable booking and elects to postpone Yale for a year. At the end of his second tour, he is hooked and never returns to academia. Marvelously layered between flashbacks romanticizing the real Charles Carter's early years on and off the stage and later action in the mid-'20s with Secret Service Agent Griffin's conviction that Carter knows Harding's apocryphal secret, the saga has the dash of Harold Robbins and the sweep and erudition of E.L. Doctorow. As it unfolds as both mystery and historical romance, readers, long before the denouement, will be torn between the pull of the suspense and wanting the epic to go on forever. (Sept.)Forecast: Hyperion is putting $100,000 of marketing muscle behind this dazzling debut, with eye-catching cover art from a vintage magic poster on the front and effusive praise from the likes of Michael Chabon on the back, so prestidigitation won't be required to make it fly off shelves.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (September 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0786867345
  • ISBN-13: 978-0786867349
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
My favorite novels, particularly historical novels, perfectly capture the era in which they are set not just in the character and setting but also in the style they are written. I like my Victorian novels epic and sooty, for example. "Carter Beats the Devil", based (VERY loosely) on the actual life and career of Charles Carter (NOT Houdini, as implied by some other reviewers), a turn-of-the century magician, perfectly brings to life the 1920s era.

The elaborate, tricky, and slightly melodramatic plot leaves me wondering 'what next' like an old "Perils of Pauline" silent film (the ones with the dame tied to the railroad tracks). It has the slightly slapstick quality of those movies, too. Even the modest romantic interludes have a 20s sincerity to them. It's as thrilling as a summer blockbuster movie, circa 1927.

Since the book had a reputation as a 'literary' novel, I was surprised how well it worked as sheer entertainment. This doesn't mean it lacks depth, though. Carter (the magician character) is not what you think he is, a mystery to be worked out. The same is true of many of the characters. The author gets you to think about the meaning of deception and honesty, escape and confinement, even the price and value of freedom.

It's even more interesting to read because Gold borrows techniques from magic itself to accomplish this; the author is quite adept at slight-of-hand and misdirection. You will not soon guess how it ends!

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38 of 44 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A Joy to Read October 10, 2001
Format:Hardcover
I must confesss that I do not know what drove me to buy this book in the first place. I usually read business books and biographies. But for reasons that I do not recall, I stumbled across Carter Beats the Devil and bought it. I don't usually buy books of this genre. In fact, I am not really sure of the genre itself; Zelig and Ragtime come close but not quite there. I have concluded that Carter himself must have directed me to pick this card, I mean, book.

I found the book to be extraordinarly well written. The plot is full of quirky characters and twists that would be unbelievable but for the threads of historical fact (very loose factual threads actually) woven throughout. It's a real page turner and if you stick with all 500 pages or so, immensely satisfying. Over the past two weeks, whenever the reality of current events became oppressive, I escaped into the world of San Francisco of the 1920s painted gloriously (and with author's license) by Mr. Gold. Many a night ended with my wife asking me to please put the book down and turn off the light!

I look forward to reading the author's next work with much anticipation.

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars If vaudeville were this much fun, it'd still be alive January 26, 2002
Format:Hardcover
Great literature this isn't, but grand, smart, sure-footed entertainment it is. Glen David Gold takes his readers on a twisting, rocketing roller coaster ride, and he is in full command of his effects, from the moment we step into the car until the moment it pulls to a gentle stop and we begin to breathe again.

The blurbs and the opening pages contain some of the trappings of a murder mystery, in the matter of President Harding's untimely death and the puzzle of what role, if any, the world-famous magician Carter the Great had to play in it. In fact, I bought the book because I have a neighbor with whom I swap off murder mysteries every couple of months. It's not exactly a bait and switch, and the puzzle is eventually resolved, but it is a bit of misdirection. The Harding subplot forms the bookends, not the book. I found I didn't mind in the least.

What we really get is more of a Bildungsroman than a whodunit: the story of Charles Carter's induction into the realm of stage magic, and the arc of his career. Along the way, Gold fully immerses us in two worlds just distant enough from us to be wonderfully exotic: the world of vaudeville in the final days before it was killed off by the talkies, and the world of the San Francisco upper crust as the twenties were beginning to roar.

It's reminiscent of Michael Chabon's "Kavalier and Clay" in the way it makes us part of a small fraternity of hardscrabble entertainers in the golden age of a genre, and the way we get to feel the dirt of their trade under our fingernails. (As it happens, the two books have massively intersecting acknowledgment pages.) But it lacks the high seriousness of Chabon's work.

It's also reminiscent, of course, of Ragtime, in its re-creation of an era and its free mixing of real with fictional characters....

When Mr. Gold graces us with his second novel, I will definitely be standing in line for it. Read more ›

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars abracadabra...buy this book RIGHT NOW! August 13, 2001
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I'll admit it... I rarely have the patience for a long novel. This book, however, is very, very different.

It's funny. It's clever. It's filled with joy and wonder and emotion and I cried twice.

I can't remember the last time I read a novel that I enjoyed so much. How much? At one point, I sat on an airplane (After a four hour flight) for ten minutes after we landed, trying to finish a chapter. They finally had to ask me to leave the plane so they could finish cleaning it.

Don't let the magic connection fool you. It has more to do with Ragtime than it does with a kid's birthday party. As a fan of magic, though, I can tell you that the references to big-time, old-fashioned vaudeville magic were terrific.

Sorry for the long review but I wanted you to realize that this is a must read. I wish I could read it again for the first time. Buy a few copies, and give them to friends.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite novels of all time!!
A wonderful read! Gold combines magic, mystery, love and intrigue in this wonderful novel about the life of world-famous magician, Charles Carter. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mary K. Swarts
5.0 out of 5 stars great story
enjoyed this book. good fun reading. I wished my library had a copy then I could have read it for free, but instead I bought it at Amazon. Definitely worth the purchase price.
Published 1 month ago by Steve
3.0 out of 5 stars A Magic Show
Most interesting plot - unusual. Gives insights into the time period. Was a bit long but generally quite readable. Would recommend.
Published 2 months ago by Jean Williams
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
I love books like this - a fictional account tied in with some historical aspects. This book reminds me very much of the movie, The Prestige
Published 3 months ago by Vincent Nero
5.0 out of 5 stars At random
This is one of those books a person sees in a bookstore and picks it off the
shelf with no knowledge of it beforehand. This made a very nice birthday present.
Published 5 months ago by John Calvin Errickson II
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read
Read it in paperback a couple of years ago and got it on Kindle format to re-read. One of my favorite books. Really love it.
Published 5 months ago by Andre Gordon
1.0 out of 5 stars Overpraised, overlong, and ramshackle
I share other reviewers disbelief that this novel was so widely praised. It's goes on and on for pages yet somehow skips over lots of important details and leaves characters barely... Read more
Published 5 months ago by selbyshuffler
5.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT a fantasy novel
Wow.
This book has patiently waited on my shelf for the last 6 years. For some reason, I never got around to reading it. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Ofer Chen
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
I loved Carter Beats the Devil. Mr. Gold's story unfolds in such a quiet, personal and powerful way it is hard to not describe him as a Magician himself. In Mr. Read more
Published 10 months ago by J. D. Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars Magical
This book is magical. Excuse the pun! It opens with a young boy learning tricks and that in itself is pure genious. Read more
Published 10 months ago by PA
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Last line of the book
Even a show that "bad" [to Carter] was still beyond "great" to the average viewer [Tulang]. Brilliant ending!
Oct 3, 2007 by a reader |  See all 4 posts
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