2001 by Ruth Brandon (Author) 13 ratings See all formats and editions Hardcover 12.74 5 Used from 12.74 1 New from 69.99 Paperback 3.49 8 Used from 1.75 A reissue of Ruth Brandon's definitive biography of Houdini. Brandon draws the reader inexorably into the magical, slightly crazed world of the Great Houdini, born Erich Weiss in Budapest, or was it Appleton, Wisconsin? Photos not seen by PW. The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini Paperback 10 Aug. He died in 1926 at the age of 52-from appropriately mysterious causes. Obsessively devoted to his mother and to his wife, Bess, Houdini numbered among his friends both Edmund Wilson and Conan Doyle. The dramatic escapes of this meticulous craftsman were in essence faked but nonetheless often highly dangerous. She considers what psychological needs drove a man to jump handcuffed into an icy river to prove he could free himself, or to hang upside down in a straitjacket from the top of a skyscraper for the same reason and she portrays ``this conspicuously brave man'' as also a ``conspicuously frightened man.'' Houdini's every performance carried the threat of death and, more important, the threat of failure. Houdini was born sometime in 1874 (virtually nothing about him was easy for his biographer to establish). Brandon, who has written on Sarah Bernhardt (Being Divine) and the Singer sewing machine family, approaches this master of illusion with skepticism and sympathy. Brandon's other books include The New Women and the Old Men and an autobiography of Sarah Berhardt, Being Divine. She claims that, more complex than just a small man triumphing against the odds, his escapes can be read as a drama of death and resurrection. Ruth Brandon argues that it is in his death that the key to Houdini's life and success is to be found.
It considers the nature of a man whom the author believes was probably sexually repressed, and yet performed almost naked, draped in chains and manacles, who wrote love letters to his wife five times a day, and who struggled obsessively for years to prove or disprove the existence of life after death. The book examines the phenomenon of fame - what it is that compels a man to perform acts of near-suicidal bravado to gain public acclaim, and what it is that draws vast crowds of people to watch. His tricks were very clever and effective, but the author of this book argues that the man himself was far more interesting than the tricks. The common perception of Houdini is of a small man, manacled, jumping off a bridge into icy water, suspended from a skyscraper or emerging from a sealed coffin. More than 60 years after his death, the deeds of the escapologist Harry Houdini still inspire imitators and ad-men.
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