The Box Jumper
Lisa Manetti
Smart Rhino
August 2015
Reviewed by Michael R. Collings
Lisa Mannetti’s novella, The Box Jumper, is a magical phantasmagoria.
Literally.
It is magical. That is, it concentrates on the most celebrated magician of his age, perhaps of any age, Harry Houdini, as master illusionist; as a man willing—and hoping—to receive evidence of life after death; and as dedicated debunker of phonies, no matter how powerful. To illuminate the dark corners of his life and his death, and to support the narrative that he was murdered, the novella takes readers into the mysteries of stage magic and manipulated séances, verbally reproducing fantastical effects that a hundred years ago would have seemed impossible.
And it is phantasmagorical, in a strict definition of the word: “a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination.” From the reference on page one to Houdini flying an early biplane—“It’s unbelievable. What a man!”—to the final, chilling psychiatrist’s report of a woman caught in schizophrenic delusions, The Box Jumper shifts effortlessly in time and space, from dream to reality and back again, from memory to reportage as it re-creates Leona Derwatt’s fascination with Houdini, her life-long love of him, and her unwilling conscription as co-conspirator by those intent on destroying his reputation…and his life.
As with any finely imagined magical phantasmagoria, truth and reality are not always synonymous. Characters, events, locations, time, even life and death—all appear in various and varied disguises, tantalizingly convincing but never quite what they present themselves as being. No matter the persons or the places, however, at the heart of every word of The Box Jumper is Harry Houdini at the height of his charismatic powers.
Mannetti has done an exceptional job of imagining story and re-imagining history, working with threads as disparate as the horrors of a polio epidemic and the unthinkable possibility of shadow-spirits controlling unwitting victims. At any given moment in The Box Jumper, readers might pause and wonder; but by the end, they will have experienced an abiding love story, a fascinating mystery, and a powerful psychological thriller.
Recommended.
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