Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini

This highly readable biography about Harry Houdini (1874-1926), the famous magician and escape artist, casts a spell of its own. Through the well-researched and fast-paced narrative, Lalicki (Light Shining Through the Mist: A Photobiography of Dian Fossey) sifts through the many contradictions of Houdini's life to unveil the circumstances leading up to Houdini's stratospheric success. Born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, the future magician immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1878. By age 18, he had channeled his drive and a love of performing into magic, choosing the stage name Harry Houdini in homage to master magician Robert-Houdin. Lalicki effectively underscores the tandem guiding influences of Houdini's mother and his wife, Bess Rahner, who also acted as his assistant, in describing a career that spanned from 1892-1926. The author also puts Houdini's success into perspective at a time when people had little money and media coverage was scarce. He attributes Houdini's breakthrough, in large part, to his 1899 introduction to Martin Beck, who backed him and encouraged Houdini to drop the more banal magician's tricks in favor of innovative escapes, which he mastered through intense physical exertion and practice (e.g., he spent more than three years perfecting the Chinese Water-Torture Cell escape before performing it in 1912). Unfortunately, the design of the biography resembles a textbook more than a volume befitting its dazzling subject. However, photographs and memorabilia documenting Houdini's superhuman feats (including escapes from jail cells and hanging upside-down in a straitjacket, suspended over a crowded Washington, D.C., street) inject excitement into the pages. Readers will be inspired by both Houdini's magic and enduring mysteries and by this subject's timeless message about the power of hard work and dedication. Ages 10-up. (July) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.