Glen David Gold

Charles Carter, dubbed Carter the Great by Houdini himself, was born into privilege but became a magician out of need: only when dazzling an audience can he defeat his fear of loneliness. But in 1920s America the stakes are growing higher, as technology and the cinema challenge the allure of magic and Carter's stunts become increasingly audacious. Until the night President Harding takes part in Carter's act only to die two hours later, and Carter finds himself pursued not only by the Secret Service but by a host of others desperate to discover the terrible secret they believe Harding confided in him. Seamlessly blending reality and fiction, Gold lays before us a glittering and romantic panorama of our modern world at a point of irrevocable change.

Carter Beats the Devil - Sceptre 21S

Michael Chabon

Kevin McCarthy

Eric Wight

Don't miss out on this thrilling first volume of The Escapist, featuring an original story by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Kavalier & Clay. . .Michael Chabon.

The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist

On a winter day in 1916 American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity. Charlie Chaplin is spotted in more than eight hundred places simultaneously, an extraordinary delusion that brings together the fortunes of three men: Leland Wheeler, son of the world's last (and worst) Wild West star, as he finds unexpected love on the battlefields of France; Hugo Black, drafted to fight under the towering General Edmund Ironside in America's doomed expedition against the Bolsheviks; and Chaplin himself, as he faces a tightening vise of complications--studio moguls, questions about his patriotism, his unchecked heart, and, most menacing of all, "his mother."

Part One of the Novel Sunnyside

A Day's Pleasure

Carter e o Diabo

From the author of the acclaimed Carter Beats the Devil comes a grand entertainment with the brilliantly realized figure of Charlie Chaplin at its centre: a novel at once cinematic and intimate, thrilling and darkly comic, which dramatizes the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity. Sunnyside follows three overlapping fortunes: Leland Wheeler, son of the last (and worst) Wild West star, as he heads to the battlefields of France; snobbish Hugo Black, drafted to fight in Russia under the British general, Edmund Ironside; and Chaplin himself, contending with studio moguls, accusations of cowardice, his unchecked heart and, most menacing of all, his mother, as he pursues the goal of making a movie ‘as good as he was’. With a cast of enthralling characters both historical and fictional, Sunnyside is a heart-rending, spellbinding novel about dreams, ambition and the dawn of the modern age.

Sunnyside

'I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I've read in years. It's likely the best memoir published in years.' Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life and Chang and Eng From the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a shocking, big-hearted memoir about his bizarre upbringing in California in the 1970s and how he survived it. Glen David Gold grew up rich on the beaches of 1970s California, until his father lost a fortune and his parents divorced when he was ten. Glen and his English mother moved to San Francisco, where she was fleeced by a series of charming con men and turned increasingly wayward. When he was twelve, she took off for New York without telling him, leaving him to fend for himself. On midnight streets and at drug-fuelled parties, wise-cracking his way through an alarming adult world, Glen watched his mother's countless, wild attempts to reinvent herself. In this exceptional memoir, acclaimed novelist Glen David Gold captures his bizarre, lonely upbringing and how it shaped him as an adult with stunning insight and unsparing candour. Shocking, mordantly funny and achingly affecting, he tells an unforgettable story of the years he spent trying to rescue his mother - and his ultimate realisation that only by breaking free could he ever hope to be complete. 'The prose is crystalline, hard as real diamonds, flashing, revealing. The story is simple, just a boy and his mother's long disintegration, but the journey is darkly complicated, heartbreaking, beautiful as hell.' Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama

A memoir

I Will Be Complete

Charles Carter, dubbed Carter the Great by Houdini himself, was born into privilege but became a magician out of need: only when dazzling an audience can he defeat his fear of loneliness. But in 1920s America the stakes are growing higher, as technology and the cinema challenge the allure of magic and Carter's stunts become increasingly audacious. Until the night President Harding takes part in Carter's act only to die two hours later, and Carter finds himself pursued not only by the Secret Service but by a host of others desperate for the terrible secret they believe Harding confided in him. Seamlessly blending reality and fiction, Gold lays before us a glittering and romantic panorama of our modern world at a point of irrevocable change.

Glen David Gold

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