JIM STEINMEYER is one of today's most renowned historians of stage magic. His many books include The Last Greatest Magician in the World, Who Was Dracula?, The Glorious Deception, and Hiding the Elephant, a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Steinmeyer is a leading designer of magic illusion who has done work for television, Broadway, and many of the best-known names in modern magic, such as Doug Henning, Siegfried & Roy, and David Copperfield. Steinmeyer has also developed attractions and live shows for the Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios, and DreamWorks, and has twice received fellowships from the Academy of Magical Arts.
"This is how biographies should be written: Steinmeyer is the ideal
host, introducing us to a fascinating stranger, and sliding into
the background...Here is a storyteller with a glint in his eye.
Pull up a chair, you won't be disappointed." --Mark Stafford, Times
of London
"An engrossing biography." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"Perceptive and entertaining." --Ed Park, Los Angeles Times
"Steinmeyer is a gifted biographer, an elegant and unobtrusive
author who shows us an entirely fascinating, shy, and witty man, a
20th-century original. This book is not to be missed." --Margaret
Heilbrun, Library Journal
"Steinmeyer conjures up his subject's world with wit and empathy,
and subtly tracks the events that formed Fort's singular character.
The man emerges as eccentric, funny, self-effacing and
contradictory. Even the most devoted skeptic will enjoy his
company." --Harry Pearson, The Daily Mail
"Fort can easily be lampooned as the man who wrote about rains of
frogs, but as Jim Steinmeyer emphasizes in this intriguing
biography, he trod a narrow tightrope between belief and
skepticism. His life, as graphically portrayed in this book, was
often frustrated and unfulfilled. But the legacy he left makes the
world a brighter place: paradoxically, both saner and sillier."
--David V. Barrett, The Independent
"While American history has relegated Fort to the same curiosity
file he so deliberately plumbed, Fort's influence has outstretched
his literary contributions. Steinmeyer conjures both the image and
mind of Fort in such a way as to mirror Fort's own writings. In
doing so, Steinmeyer offers readers a psychological profile of
Fort, as well as a glimpse into the culture and history that
birthed the supernatural interests of our nation." --Michael Mason,
Tulsa World
"Steinmeyer captures Fort's wry humor, skepticism and wildest
notions. He has emerged from the archives with a wonderful,
prismatic portrait. --Publishers Weekly
"This odd, unique character emerges fully rounded in Jim
Steinmeyer's fascinating, sympathetic biography." --Richard
Lingeman, author of Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey
"A colorful portrait of an offbeat character." --Kirkus Reviews
"A delightful book." --Robert Ito, Los Angeles Magazine
"A jolly biography." --Damian Thompson, London Telegraph
"Steinmeyer has produced a meticulously researched, marvelously
readable window on the life of this extraordinary man. Was he a
genius or a crank? Fort's message is that we should not always seek
solutions, because there might be none. That is Steinmeyer's
verdict on the man himself." --Andrew Crumey, The Scotsman
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