8/31/2023 0 Comments The handcuff king![]() Lutes and Bertozzi successfully offer a tiny snapshot as a way into a very large life. Several pages of historical notes fill in the details. Houdini himself comes off as a flawed but respectable man, whose principles make him both exceptional at what he does and difficult to be around. ![]() Illustrations show him preparing to defeat the handcuffs, and wordless panels ultimately allow readers to witness the escape process in its entirety. As the story opens on May 1, 1908, he is preparing for a handcuffed jump from Harvard Bridge, chafing at badgering reporters and a flock of imitators who are stealing his tricks. ![]() Houdini is an insecure man obsessed with fame, but also a faithful and devoted husband. The police would search him and then handcuff him in chains. Houdini challenged the police of England, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Russia. But the authors intimate larger, at times darker themes (true love, arrogance, anti-Semitism) lurking around the outer edges. His first performance was in 1883, at age 9. A single stunt from the sprawling career of the "handcuff king," Harry Houdini ("The man for whom the phrase 'kids, don't try this at home' might well have been invented," reads Glen David Gold's introduction), is the lynchpin of this brief, elegant book.
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