The Confabulist

February 24, 2014
From the author of The Cellist of Sarajevo comes this colorful but hard-to-swallow reimagining of Harry Houdini’s life and death. The book opens with narrator Martin Strauss asserting, “I didn’t just kill Harry Houdini. I killed him twice.” Strauss is Galloway’s fictionalized version of the young man who famously punched the famed illusionist in the stomach at a theater in Montreal in 1926, rupturing Houdini’s appendix, which caused his death two days later. Or did it? The hypothesis that Houdini may have survived is the book’s biggest (and most outrageous) conceit—one that may test readers’ patience and credulity. As Martin pursues the “dead” Houdini while trying to evade conspirators who want him silenced, evocative flashbacks limn Houdini’s rise to stardom, his great illusions, and his crusade to expose mediums and other charlatans. All this is well-trod ground, but what is different is the use Galloway makes of a recent idea in Houdini lore: that he worked for U.S. and British intelligence—“the skills of a magician and the skills of a spy were nearly identical.” Galloway makes this notion somewhat believable, but the basic premise of this stylish but convoluted novel—Houdini’s survival—remains difficult to accept. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.

April 15, 2014
In this darkly fanciful take on the Houdini legend by the acclaimed author of The Cellist of Sarajevo (2008), the magician's life is recounted through the damaged memory of the fan who killed him with a punch to the stomach in 1926. The ultimate in unreliable narrators, Martin Strauss, a magic expert, suffers from a rare condition in which his brain invents new memories to replace lost ones. According to him, Houdini actually survived the appendix-rupturing gut punch and went into hiding. Obsessed with finding "the most famous person on the planet," Strauss is stalked by nefarious sorts himself. Shadowy flashbacks to Houdini's secret alternative life as an agent for U.S. and British intelligence explain this chain of events. The novel also examines Houdini's friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle, a devout believer in spiritualism, through whom the nonbelieving Houdini--nee Ehrich Weiss, son of a rabbi--meets his match: Boston medium Margery Crandon, seductive head of a ring of spiritualists which controls the U.S. Congress. Much of the material pertaining to Houdini's rise to fame is familiar, though the way he discounts and offhandedly explains his tricks and escapes is amusing. Galloway's inventions can sometimes be a bit of a stretch, but his explorations of the relationships between truth and illusion, fiction and reality, need and conscience are stimulating and affecting. It's only too bad he feels the need to state those themes so explicitly: "There's no way to know whether anything we have seen or experienced is real or imagined"; "A memory isn't a finished product, it's a work in progress," et al. An entertaining fictional reflection on the 20th century's most famous magician that probably shouldn't be the first book one reads on the subject.

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Starred review from April 15, 2014
Confabulation is the invention of imaginary memories to compensate for memory loss. It's not lying because the confabulist is not aware the memories are false. This fascinating novel is narrated by Martin Strauss, who confesses to two things: he is the man who killed Harry Houdini (twice), and he suffers from a degenerative condition that affects his brain's ability to store memories. Strauss tells a fascinating story about the unknown Houdini: stage magiciansure, we all know thatbut also a secret spy for the U.S. Treasury Department, advisor to the American military, confidant of a Russian spy, faker of his own death. Strauss' story so cleverly mixes historical fact with fiction that it is virtually impossible to separate the two (and, remember, Strauss believes it's all true). Author Galloway will often take a real event, such as Houdini's escape from a prison transport in Moscow, and layer on fictional elements, but it's done so seamlessly that it'd be easy to think the whole episode really happened (as Strauss, in fact, does). The book's title itself could easily apply either to Strauss (for obvious reasons) or to Houdini himself, whose escape-artist persona, even his name, was an embellishment of the real man. A brilliant novel, and one that virtually demands multiple readings to pick up all the subtleties (especially concerning the end of the book, and enough said about that).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2014

To confabulate, according to Merriam-Webster, is to fill in the blanks in one's memory by fabricating. If one repeats the lie often enough, does it then become truth? In this engaging novel, based loosely on the life of Harry Houdini, Canadian author Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajevo) challenges readers to distinguish between illusion and reality through the metaphor of magic. The story centers on narrator Martin Strauss, diagnosed with a degenerative disease that affects memory, as he struggles to recall, and atone for, the fateful night that he and the great magician first crossed paths. Martin and his lover Clara were attending Houdini's performance in Montreal when a confluence of circumstances resulted in Martin's delivering the sucker punch to Houdini's gut that would lead to his death from a ruptured appendix. Confused and guilt ridden, Martin abandons Clara and becomes obsessed with meeting Houdini's widow, Bess, to make amends. VERDICT Like a magician, Galloway embeds enough curveballs and red herrings in his narrative to keep readers on unsteady footing throughout, as they circle back to reread a chapter, trying to decipher what is real and what is illusion. This blending of fact and fiction is reminiscent of work by E.L. Doctorow or Colum McCann, ensuring interest for both history and mystery buffs. [See Prepub Alert, 11/3/13.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013

Galloway's poignant, sharp-eyed The Cellist of Sarajevo was both a commercial and a critical success, having sold over 100,000 copies, won multiple awards, and been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize. Now he's back with a novel viewing the world from the perspective of master magician Harry Houdini.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.