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Carter Beats the Devil book cover
Carter Beats the Devil
2001
First Published
4.09
Average Rating
563
Number of Pages
Charles Carter—a.k.a. Carter the Great—is a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini. But nothing in his career has prepared Carter for the greatest stunt of all, which stars none other than President Warren G. Harding and which could end up costing Carter the reputation he has worked so hard to create. Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties, pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical—and sometimes dangerous—world, where illusion is everything.
Avg Rating
4.09
Number of Ratings
13,921
5 STARS
37%
4 STARS
40%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads

Author

Glen David Gold
Glen David Gold
Author · 4 books

Glen David Gold is the author of Carter Beats the Devil (Hyperion, 2001), a historical novel about Charles Carter, a real-life San Francisco stage magician who performs for President Warren Harding on the evening of Harding's mysterious death. It has been translated into 14 languages. His next novel, Sunnyside (Knopf, 2009), is a dark romp concerning Charlie Chaplin's rise to fame during World War I and its parallels with America's embrace of its part on the world stage. His most recent book is a memoir, I Will Be Complete (Knopf, 2018). About it, Darin Strauss (Half a Life, Chang and Eng) writes, "“I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I’ve read in years. It’s likely the best memoir published in years." Gold's short stories have appeared in a number of issues of McSweeney's. He has also published fiction, essays, memoir and reviews in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy, Wired and Zyzzyva. Gold wrote a single 1997 episode of the cartoon show Hey Arnold. He has also ventured into comic books, including The Spirit, featuring artwork by Eduardo Risso, and The Escapist, with artwork by Gene Colan. He has written extensively about comics creator Jack Kirby, most notably for the Masters of American Comics and Comic Book Apocalypse museum show catalogues. More recently, Gold co-wrote episodes of the stage show The Thrilling Adventure Hour and the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. He lives in Los Angeles not with but adjacent to his girlfriend, in a duplex, the logistics of which are addressed in a 2018 Modern Love column for The New York Times.

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