įrom the back rooms of New York City s age-old magic societies to cutting-edge psychology labs, three-card monte games on Canal Street to glossy Las Vegas casinos, Fooling Houdini recounts Alex Stone s quest to join the ranks of master magicians. As he navigates this quirky and occasionally hilarious subculture populated by brilliant eccentrics, Stone pulls back the curtain on a community shrouded in secrecy, fueled by obsession and brilliance, and organized around one overriding need: to prove one s worth by deceiving. as he immerses himself in the fascinating subculture of the underground magic scene, trying to graduate through the life cycle of a magician (“trickster” is the earliest phase, followed by “sorcerer,” “oracle” then “sage”).From the back rooms of New York City s age-old magic societies to cutting-edge psychology labs, three-card monte games on Canal Street to glossy Las Vegas casinos, Fooling Houdini recounts Alex Stone s quest to join the ranks of master magicians.

The majority of the book instead follows Stone through New York, Las Vegas, L.A., China and the U.K.

In his defence, Stone describes how to do very few tricks (although he does detail one particularly impressive number, in which he throws a deck of cards into the audience, asks participants to pick six, then guesses each one without every touching the deck again). “This book could have easily been titled Magic is Awesome.”

It all comes as a bit of a surprise to Stone, who doesn’t see his book as a how-to guide, but more of a “300-page love letter to magic,” he says. “There are people who still won’t shake my hand in New York, and I got excommunicated from my local magic society,” he says. Which would explain the trouble Stone now finds himself in with the underground magician community where he was once a proud member. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

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Alex stone fooling houdini