The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer [Paperback]

I am a recent inductee into the world of magic, and found Jim Steinmeyer's latest offering - about the strange life, and tragic death of turn-of-the-century magician William Robinson, better known as the 'Marvelous Chinese Conjurer' Chung Ling Soo - utterly fascinating.

Steinmeyer beautifully limns a portrait of the scrappy but sophisticated world of magic in the early days of vaudeville and music hall and brilliantly captures the personalities of the master magicians who commanded up to $5000 a week performing for rapt crowds who came to see miracles, and were rarely disappointed.

But more than that, Steinmeyer gives us an insider's look at the rivalries and deceptions that fueled the magic - the stealth and deception magicians practiced on each other in a desperate bid to become or remain a headliner on the vaudeville circuit.

His impeccably researched book details the strange dual life of Bill Robinson, who failed to captivate audiences as himself, but became one of the highest paid and most sought after mystifiers in the world as Chung Ling Soo - an elegant pastiche of a Chinese magician. Killed on stage while performing the infamous bullet catching trick, Harry Houdini (a friend and colleague who wisely refrained from ever attempting the trick) later theorized that Soo had been deliberately murdered, or committed a bizarre form of suicide. Steinmeyer's book not only illuminates what really happened during Soo's tragic final performance the night of March 23, 1918, he weaves a fascinating tale of deception, rivalry, and illusion in the dark world of magic 100 years ago.

Whether you're a historian, a magician, a theatre buff, or simply looking for a good summer read, "The Glorious Deception" delivers magic aplenty. Don't miss it!

I don't give out a lot of 5 star reviews. This book gets 5 stars from me because of 3 reasons:

1) It's a great story about a complicated and interestingly flawed person. Will Robinson was an ambitious showman, who recoginzed the flaws in his professional self and worked tirelessly to overcome them, but failed to overcome the flaws in his personal self, leaving an estranged wife and an abandoned son behind him. That he's a world-class illusionist and turn of the century entertainer makes him a lot more interesting.

2) The author is a great historical writer, and he brings turn of the 20th century vaudeville to life in a real page-turning way. He does a great job exploring not just the main character and his wives and children, but the giants of magic at the time. Will Robinson spent a lot of time going back and forth between the two greatest magicians of the day, who were also bitter rivals. You learn so much good stuff about Kellar and Herrmann that the book feels like it's two or three books in content, without being two or three books in length. The author must've worked really hard to keep the book this packed and this short and accessible.

3) And to me, this is what earned the 5th star in a big way: the author actually explains how the cutting edge (at the time) illusions worked. In detail. With no warnings about how "the brotherhood of magicians would kill me if they knew" or other such blather. He warns us at the beginning that illusionists don't protect the secrets from the audience, but the audience from the secrets. Once you know how it's done, you a) don't enjoy the trick anymore and b) feel foolish for not figuring it out yourself. So, knowing that ahead of time, when he reveals all the ingenious stuff the magicians build and skills they learn, he does it in a way that makes you feel like an insider, like a performer or production assistant. It makes you (well, it made me... your mileage may vary) feel like a part of the story somehow, since the discovery, invention, and espionage behind illusions is an important, sexy, and treacherous part of being a professional conjurer in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Anyway, that's why I love the book and give it a perfect score. Can't wait for his next one.

A great story. A Chinese vaudeville magician, shot on stage by one of his own tricks; his colleagues are fooled; his associates are bewildered; his wife insists it must have been an accident. And then the truth begins to unwind. He's not Chinese. He has another family. And his magic tricks are just the beginnings of his deceptions.

It sounds like an Agatha Christie mystery, or a Hitchcock film. But its actually a true story about one of the world's greatest magicians.

I was a fan of Steinmeyer's previous book, which was an examination of how magicians accomplished their tricks and the weird personalities behind the scenes. And Glorious Deception is even more exciting, a look at the world of magic, with colorful, amazing descriptions. The true tale of Chung Ling Soo will be a real surprise to many readers, and I recommend it highly. I loved this book.