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alicihonest's review against another edition
3.0
Gets a bit slow around the middle, so I think this fairly large book could have done with some editing down. But other than that, a pretty great story and a wonderful character to follow.
sireno8's review
2.0
There are some stories that work better on film than in print and I think this is one of them. There are certain things that you see in a movie and believe that you just don't on paper. That was largely my experience here. The author clearly has a passion for this setting and subject matter. The attention to detail is rich and rewarding. But sometimes it's so dense it ceases to become engaging. I like that story seems to zig right when you think it going to zag. I also liked the sheer theatricality of it. But as whole it felt overlong. And the writing was stiff in some places and jarring contemporary in others, particilarly in dialogue. The author could have done with a bit more editorial guidance to keep the story sharp and the action moving. In short, I wanted to like it alot more than I actually did.
jwmcoaching's review
4.0
This is a highly enjoyable read, but it's not a great one. Gold's attention to historical detail and flair for storytelling are both highly admirable and this is a lot of fun to read. However, like his second novel, Sunnyside, he doesn't seem to know when to quit. The denouement is super long (as is the novel itself) and I kept thinking, "okay, this is a good spot to end it...no, okay...how bout this one? No? Still going...?" Speaking of Sunnyside, that second novel is as good, if not better (ESPECIALLY if you're interested in old Hollywood, i.e. Chaplin/Pickford/Fairbanks era). Gold certainly has a flair for historical fiction, I just wish that for his third one (and I do look forward to more from him!), he could learn to pare it down a little bit more.
jkariel's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
valentinalg's review
2.0
I found it very boring. I managed to read 60% based on the hope that it would get better, and then gave up.
giantarms's review
5.0
This copy broke off in the middle of the last sentence which was doubly confounding because the book is about a magician and who knows what kind of screwy trick might be being played on the reader. Fortunately, Google books was kind enough to provide the last page so I could scribble down the last dozen words into the margin to conclude . . .
A Real Good Book, as Defined by Me, a Sucker for Magicians.
The book is long, traversing Cater the Great's life from childhood to middle age. In the prologue, President Harding goes to a magic show and then dies. As the biography unfurls, every once and a while the Secret Service or somebody pops their head in to cause him trouble and the reader is reminded "Oh, yeah! The president died! Wait, why do they think Carter is involved? What? Oh, nevermind now we're back to making things disappear and being scared of girls. Hell yeah!" So it's only KIND of a mystery, which is just as well. I've read a couple lately and I've had my fill for the moment of tense, gritty situations punctuated with the discarding of underclothes. I was refreshed by Carter, a man so cool under pressure, so clever and collected, just absolutely being lost at the whorehouse. A man who could tell you at a glance anything you wanted to know about the oddest of oddities, but being mystified as to how a budget functions.
There's one scene involving a nighttime walk in an Oakland park with a lion that, alone, made the book worth it to me.
My only real criticism is that in the author's enthusiasm for period research, we often find ourselves in the midst of a detailed product description that seems a little out of place. Did I absolutely need to know about the kangaroo thread in the stitches? Why did we spend so much time talking about PEZ? For the one gag at the end of the book? All right. If I'm honest, I kind of enjoyed it. Nevermind, you guys.
Anyway, no mind-collapsing philosophy or achingly delicate prose. Just a great, colorful time with a large cast of screwballs in a warm, nutty world where anything can happen (and absolutely have a reasonable explanation for doing so).
A Real Good Book, as Defined by Me, a Sucker for Magicians.
The book is long, traversing Cater the Great's life from childhood to middle age. In the prologue, President Harding goes to a magic show and then dies. As the biography unfurls, every once and a while the Secret Service or somebody pops their head in to cause him trouble and the reader is reminded "Oh, yeah! The president died! Wait, why do they think Carter is involved? What? Oh, nevermind now we're back to making things disappear and being scared of girls. Hell yeah!" So it's only KIND of a mystery, which is just as well. I've read a couple lately and I've had my fill for the moment of tense, gritty situations punctuated with the discarding of underclothes. I was refreshed by Carter, a man so cool under pressure, so clever and collected, just absolutely being lost at the whorehouse. A man who could tell you at a glance anything you wanted to know about the oddest of oddities, but being mystified as to how a budget functions.
There's one scene involving a nighttime walk in an Oakland park with a lion that, alone, made the book worth it to me.
My only real criticism is that in the author's enthusiasm for period research, we often find ourselves in the midst of a detailed product description that seems a little out of place. Did I absolutely need to know about the kangaroo thread in the stitches? Why did we spend so much time talking about PEZ? For the one gag at the end of the book? All right. If I'm honest, I kind of enjoyed it. Nevermind, you guys.
Anyway, no mind-collapsing philosophy or achingly delicate prose. Just a great, colorful time with a large cast of screwballs in a warm, nutty world where anything can happen (and absolutely have a reasonable explanation for doing so).
thecommonswings's review
5.0
Oh for the days when the Daily Telegraph actually had the most insightful blurb for a book, because Helen Brown is absolutely correct: the real touchstone for this fabulous novel is Wilkie Collins. It’s densely and carefully plotted, full of misdirection and magnificent cameos, with glorious setpieces and a really focused understanding of what makes for great populist fantastic literature (and yes, I am still a bit bitter about bloody Drood)
There’s absolutely sod all here that counts as historical fiction, and instead it reminds me a little of the Bildungsroman of Robertson Davies’ Deptford books with a healthy dose of Paul Malmont’s Chinatown Death Cloud Peril thrown in. Because where that pays tribute to the great pulp authors of the early twentieth century by plonking them in a pulp adventure they would love to have written, Gold places Carter in the sort of magnificently plotted spectacle any magician of the period would adore. There’s some beautiful plotting, some lovely little cameos that behave just as cameos (a lesser writer would have milked that Marx Brothers cameo no end), some audacious subplots, a lot of good character business and a really rattlingly entertaining finale, complete with satisfying revelation of how some of the tricks were pulled off
None of this would count for anything if it weren’t for the quality of the writing and particularly the strength of the character bits. There’s a slight sense in the second section of the book treading water slightly, but I think that’s deliberate because it’s meant to
build you up to a certain kind of climax (I wouldn’t be surprised if Gold deliberately wanted to *evoke* the phrase “treading water” either). And the characters are beautifully done: Carter himself is always slightly boyish and overthinks himself, which is fitting for a character we are reading the viewpoint of for much of the novel. And both heroines have something of, yes, the non drippy sister of a certain novel by Wilkie Collins about them. Marian Halcombe would appreciate Annabelle and Phoebe very much indeed
There’s absolutely sod all here that counts as historical fiction, and instead it reminds me a little of the Bildungsroman of Robertson Davies’ Deptford books with a healthy dose of Paul Malmont’s Chinatown Death Cloud Peril thrown in. Because where that pays tribute to the great pulp authors of the early twentieth century by plonking them in a pulp adventure they would love to have written, Gold places Carter in the sort of magnificently plotted spectacle any magician of the period would adore. There’s some beautiful plotting, some lovely little cameos that behave just as cameos (a lesser writer would have milked that Marx Brothers cameo no end), some audacious subplots, a lot of good character business and a really rattlingly entertaining finale, complete with satisfying revelation of how some of the tricks were pulled off
None of this would count for anything if it weren’t for the quality of the writing and particularly the strength of the character bits. There’s a slight sense in the second section of the book treading water slightly, but I think that’s deliberate because it’s meant to
build you up to a certain kind of climax (I wouldn’t be surprised if Gold deliberately wanted to *evoke* the phrase “treading water” either). And the characters are beautifully done: Carter himself is always slightly boyish and overthinks himself, which is fitting for a character we are reading the viewpoint of for much of the novel. And both heroines have something of, yes, the non drippy sister of a certain novel by Wilkie Collins about them. Marian Halcombe would appreciate Annabelle and Phoebe very much indeed