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Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero

Editor: William Kalush and Larry Sloman
Publisher: Atria Books
$29.95 Cloth (591 P.)
ISBN: 9780743272070
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Reviewed by Marcia A. Lusted, Statusing

As a magician, Harry Houdini has always enjoyed a reputation as one of America's best-known entertainers: famous for his ability to escape from seemingly inescapable situations involving chains, handcuffs, and straightjackets, among other things. After his death, the admiring and the curious still flock to his grave every Halloween night, hoping for a supernatural sign or appearance. That alone would make any biography about him interesting reading, but in this book, Kalush and Sloman reveal that there was much more to Houdini than the public ever really knew.

Houdini, born Erik Weisz in Hungary in 1874, was determined from the start to become a famous entertainer, but his success as a magician and escape artist is only a small part of the story. During World War I, Houdini used his ability to tour as an entertainer in places such as Germany and Russia as a method for spying and gathering information for agencies, including London's MI-5. His methods for escaping from different forms of bondage were sometimes taught to soldiers who might encounter similar situations among the enemy. After World War I ended, Houdini used his talents to infiltrate and expose the world of spiritualism, where fake mediums claimed to be in contact with the spirit world in order to make money from willing participants desperate to contact their dead loved ones. This obsession with exposing these spiritualists may have ultimately led to Houdini's death as he was punched in the stomach and suffered from a ruptured appendix.

This is not a book for readers who are seeking to know the secrets behind Houdini's greatest tricks. The authors, one of whom is a magician himself, steadfastly adhere to a magician's code of not revealing each other's secrets. As much as it would be fascinating to know how Houdini made an elephant disappear into thin air, his secrets are never spelled out (though a few are hinted at). The reader begins to admire the authors' respect for Houdini in that, even eighty years after his death, the methods behind his most famous routines are still kept secret.

This biography definitely earns my highest praise for being both comprehensively informative and completely readable. It brings to life something of the personality of a man who was so much more than just a famous magician. He really was one of America's first superheroes.