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A review by thewallflower00
Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies by Derek Delgaudio
5.0
Like a lot of people, I came to Derek Delgaudio from his Hulu special “In and Of Itself“. It’s part magic show, part stand-up, part TED talk and everyone on Twitter was talking about it. I loved every second. So of course, I looked to see if there was more. And this was it.
This is more of a memoir–a tale of how he grew up and became a sleight-of-hand master. But Derek Delgaudio cannot be defined because he’s both a walking contradiction and an antiquity. A likable liar. A loveable cad. Neil Gaiman said that “magic (like fiction) means someone stands up on stage and says ‘I am going to lie to you’ and you accept the lie because you want to.”
Fortunately, this book isn’t as “pull the wool over your eyes”. Probably because it’s harder to do card tricks in the written word. But also because you probably want to figure out how such a man exists. It’s all about truth vs. lies, who plays who, who can you trust. He can do with words what he does in his special.
This book expounds on the details he touches on in his special, like his lesbian fire-fighting mother and his… well I wouldn’t call it stage fright, but part of the reason he’s the master of his field is he doesn’t like performing. But he can do the same thing over and over and over, practice and practice and practice the same motions to 10th degree black belt level and never get bored.
Derek Delgaudio is the honest cheater. The Sting transformed into a force for good. If you saw the special, you’ll want to read the book. If you read the book, you will want more. It certainly did for me.
This is more of a memoir–a tale of how he grew up and became a sleight-of-hand master. But Derek Delgaudio cannot be defined because he’s both a walking contradiction and an antiquity. A likable liar. A loveable cad. Neil Gaiman said that “magic (like fiction) means someone stands up on stage and says ‘I am going to lie to you’ and you accept the lie because you want to.”
Fortunately, this book isn’t as “pull the wool over your eyes”. Probably because it’s harder to do card tricks in the written word. But also because you probably want to figure out how such a man exists. It’s all about truth vs. lies, who plays who, who can you trust. He can do with words what he does in his special.
This book expounds on the details he touches on in his special, like his lesbian fire-fighting mother and his… well I wouldn’t call it stage fright, but part of the reason he’s the master of his field is he doesn’t like performing. But he can do the same thing over and over and over, practice and practice and practice the same motions to 10th degree black belt level and never get bored.
Derek Delgaudio is the honest cheater. The Sting transformed into a force for good. If you saw the special, you’ll want to read the book. If you read the book, you will want more. It certainly did for me.