William Goldman - Magic

[dem]

William Goldman - Magic (Pan, 1977)

Blurb:
Corky Withers was the all-time loser. He could do card tricks, but the people didn’t like card tricks all that much.

So Corky added a twist to his act.

The twist was going to make him a star, but instead it pitched him horror ….

INTO SOMETHING SO TERRIFYING YOU’D NEVER BELIEVE IT …

another book going on in the background - read this one before but so long ago it's like having a nice new beat up paperback to play with. Part one, Effect, is from the sweary-mouthed dummy's point of view and mostly consists of extracts from a journal, 'The Wisdom According To Fats', the entire contents of which "will be listed as Police Exhibit D."

Magician-Ventriloquist Charles "Corky" Withers, 30, has a big problem. His career is on the up, he's a hit with the girls (despite reminding his latest conquest of "something out of Looking For Mr. Goodbar"). and his agent Ben "The Postman" Greene has secured him a potentially lucrative TV pilot. Unfortunately, company policy dictates that he must undergo a medical before any contract is signed. Corky refuses on 'principle' - i.e., the principle that any such examination might reveal the extent of his mental illness. Packing Fats in his trunk, Corky does a runner back home to New York, where he runs into his teenage crush, former Prom Queen Peggy Ann Snow, who is now suffocating in a joyless marriage to bed-hopping ex-football star, Ronnie "Duke" Wayne.

Part 2 opens with a flashback to Corky's childhood, age 11 to be exact, and we find him examining a Charles Atlas advertisement in back of a comic. His father, Mutt, is a gloomy man, cursing God for giving him one leg shorter than the other and destroying his dream of becoming a star football player (Please note that all these references to 'football' have nothing whatsoever to do with proper football but some strange rugby offshoot involving heavily padded men in helmets which i believe is quite popular in the USA). His elder brother is the apple of dad's eye - his legs are both the same length and he's made the team - his mother is a dipso. Corky sends off for Mr. Atlas's introductory bodybuilding booklet, but his life becomes a nightmare when the muscle man follows this with several increasingly intimidating invitations to enrol on the course. What if he sends his people around? What if he turns up at the Withers' home in person?

admittedly, this is not the best point to leave the action but i'm determined to polish off Shaun Hutson and his grotty Spawn today if it kills me.

[ramseycampbell]

I actually didn't spot the truth about Fats until (as I recall) at least halfway through the novel - I must have had a copy that didn't reveal the twist on the cover. I thought the film ruined the book, though.

[dem]

so far i've found Goldman's novel more blackly comic than frightening - the Charles Atlas saga is both very funny and utterly convincing. also, like Stephen Gilbert's Willard/ Ratman's Notebooks there's a mid-series Pan Book Of Horror-ish feel to it, or so it seems to me.

Can't remember the movie too well, i think i only saw it the once. The consensus seems to be that Anthony Hopkins didn't make for a particularly convincing 'Corky', but hand on heart, 'Fats' is one of very few film characters every to give me a full blown, sweating nightmare. The only others to do so were Sissy Spacek's Carrie White (Carrie terrified and upset me in equal measure), a deranged Robert Micham clawing after the kids in Night Of The Hunter, the shot of a badly stuffed Ma Bates's in Psycho (more likely to make me laugh these days) and, for some reason, a blood-on-the-walls moment in something called Mad Room which, Shelley Winters' portrayal of an alcoholic apart, is otherwise a complete blur. i don't think i even slept after seeing The Omen for the first time, it depressed me so and i still detest it, the sequels too, so that's one series obviously did a good job.

we had a thread for Malevolent Dolls, Puppets, Mannequins & Evil Toy stories on our old board which might be worthy of revival. i don't think we ever established who wrote the first ventriloquist dummy terror tale, just that there have been a few!

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jun 27, 2010 11:49:13 GMT dem said:

i don't think i even slept after seeing The Omen for the first time, it depressed me so and i still detest it, the sequels too

DAMIEN: OMEN II is a masterpiece of cinema. No, seriously. It is one of my favorite films. No other film deals with adolescent issues---such as finding out your mother is the Whore of Babylon---as delicately and thoughtfully.

[stuyoung]

Saw Magic a couple of months ago and wasn't overly impressed. Considering trying the novel.