Houdini then spent a few minutes doing small deft tricks with objects at hand for the little boy. When he took his leave the entire family saw him to the door.
One of the most fascinating elements of the novel is the way the author incorporates actual historical figures—some more well-known than others-into the tapestry of his narrative. They do not just appear as iconic figures, but tend to interact quite profoundly with the other characters. In this case, the most famous magician ever just so happens to experience car trouble outside the home of the fictional family at the center of the narrative. But this is hardly the last we see of Houdini.
The volunteers waited until this was done and then advised him that he was traveling on a private toll road and that he could not drive on without paying of twenty-five dollars or by presenting a pass indicating that he was a resident of the city.
Also at the center of the narrative is the storyline of another fictional character, musician Coalhouse Walker. It just so happens that Mr. Walker is much like his nickname: black. And he drives a very nice and expensive car. And one day he drives that car through a neighborhood he probably should not have. The “volunteers” are firefighters and the toll collection on that particular road is arbitrary and based exclusively upon the color of the driver’s skin and the relative feeling among the firemen about whether or not that driver deserves to own that car. From here things just spiral out of control for the musician.
She took the witness stand and described herself at fifteen pumping her legs in a red velvet swing while a wealthy architect caught his breath at the sight of her exposed calves.
The woman on the witness stand at one time would have likely been the most famous actual person—or at least the most female—in America. So infamous was her story that phrase “red velvet swing” would have been an immediately giveaway to her notoriety; much the same way that a generation nearly a century would immediately know who you were talking about if you mentioned a pair of “size 12 Bruno Magli shoes.” Her name is Evelyn Nesbit and she was the center of what was maybe the very first “Trial of the Century” of the 1900’s. In fact, the shooting death of one man who loved her by another man who loved her would result in two trials.
Tateh took the girl’s satchel, put it on the counter and, opening it, withdrew the book of the skater. Standing next to the proprietor he held the book at arm’s length and expertly flipped the pages. The little girl skated forward and skated away, did a figure of eight, came back, went into a pirouette and made a graceful bow. The man’s eyebrows went up.
Of course, the man’s eyebrows went up. He has just witnessed the future of that newest medium to become a craze in America: the motion picture. Along with the story of Coalhouse Walker and Evelyn Nesbit, the family at the center also crosses paths—well, more than just that, actually—with a wonderfully talented but virtually homeless man named Tateh. Of course, by then Tateh has moved up in the world. So far up in the world that he takes after some very famous men real life figures in the movie business and changes his name. And so the family gets involved not so much with Tateh as with Baron Ashkenazy who, he tells them, is in the moving picture business. And how!
