The Man from Beyond

by Gabriel Brownstein

Book Overview

It is April 1922. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York on a spiritualist crusade. To packed houses at Carnegie Hall, he displays photographs of ghosts and spirits; of female mediums bound and gagged, ectoplasmic goo emerging from their bodies. In the newspapers, he defends the powers of the mysterious Margery, one of the most famous mediums of the day. His good friend Harry Houdini is a skeptic, and when Doyle claims Margery's powers are superior...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393051528
• ISBN13: 9780393051520
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly elegant entertainment - a beach read with brains.

Fictional accounts of historical figures seems to be a popular literary gimmick at the moment, and so I was wary when I stumbled across The Man From Beyond on the new release rack of my public library. "Harry Houdini?" I thought. "Jews in New York? Sounds a bit too much like Kavalier & Clay." Some glimmer of optimism encouraged me to give it a try, however, and home it went. The first chapter was received with skepticism, and a little uncertainty; it seemed impersonal, and almost fantastical. I started the second chapter tucked comfortably in bed, and by the time I snapped off the light I was completely hooked. The novel does some slight-of-hand of its own, seeming at first to be a flight of fancy, perhaps even a bit of magical realism, but instead delivers an engaging tale firmly rooted in plausibility. It is post-war New York, on the cusp of the roaring twenties, and author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini are engaged in an antagonistic friendship of sorts. Conan Doyle is a Spiritualist (and indeed, readers of Mary Roach's Spook will find some familiar content here), who seeks to rectify science with the supernatural and is a firm believer in the ability of spirits to commune with the living from the afterlife. Houdini, on the other hand, decries seances and the like as the work of charlatans and frauds, and has made it his pastime to investigate and ultimately defame purported mystics. The two have formed an unlikely truce based on a mutual respect, until the famous medium known only as "Margery" invites them to a seance to contact the spirit of Houdini's deceased mother with the hopes of making him a believer. Enter Molly, fresh out of college with a job as a reporter for a new tabloid, "maybe-lesbian," and the daughter of famous Golden Ghetto Jewish Communists. She begins investigating the Doyle-Houdini debate, which becomes increasingly antagonistic before culminating in intrigue, scandal, and murder. Meanwhile, Molly grapples with her identity as a "modern woman" in pre-Suffrage New York, her romantic entanglements (which Brownstein handles with humor and candor, with no unnecessary fluff), and her own beliefs in the face of the recent death of her beloved brother, Carl. Brownstien's characters are sympathetic, and Molly's fictional story holds up equally well with the historical celebrities. Doyle and Houdini are each rendered with strong, believable characterizations, and Molly is a likeable, down-to-earth heroine. Brownstein's prose is evocative and surprisingly elegant for what could easily have been a ham-and-cheese delivery. The Man From Beyond was a page turner with brains; fast-paced enough to be a good beach read, but so well-written that one could easily take their time. ~Jacquelyn Gill

Interesting story of a "celebrities" reporter in the 1920s, writing about the likes of Houdini and A

Molly Goodman, the protagonist of Gabriel Brownstein's first novel, is something of a prototype for the future. THE MAN FROM BEYOND takes place in the early 1920s during the postwar period. Molly is an independent woman working as a reporter for a New York tabloid and living with a roommate from Vassar. She smokes --- and not just tobacco --- and maybe is a little in love with her aforesaid roommate. Molly starts off as a cosmetology reporter ("it's sort of a science," her editor explains to her), but ends up with a job that's very twenty-first century. She's the "personalities" reporter, reporting on celebrities in an era before there really were celebrities. In her era, of course, Molly can't follow around brainless starlets, lip-synching nonentities or superannuated child actors. She has to report on celebrities from the past, and in that, Molly is more fortunate than those who have followed her into the profession. First there is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Here, Conan Doyle is close to the end of his string, mourning the loss of his son in the Great War and fully enthralled in the clutches of that new religion, Spiritualism. His friend Harry Houdini is deeply into middle age here, but can still amaze with his dexterity, particularly when it comes to handcuffs and the tools of the escapist trade. Sadly, Houdini may be less known than Conan Doyle nowadays. Outside of the admiring mention he gets in Michael Chabon's THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY, you might not have heard his name in the last ten years. In THE MAN FROM BEYOND, Houdini has branched out into movies (the book shares its title with one of Houdini's silent films) and is into debunking the myth of Spiritualism. As Conan Doyle is the great scientific defender of Spiritualism, completely convinced of its tenets, this puts him into direct conflict with Houdini --- and this conflict is what drives THE MAN FROM BEYOND. The scenes in the book where Conan Doyle matches wits with Houdini --- at séances and "spiritual writing" sessions --- are the heart of the tale. Houdini has too much respect --- real or feigned --- for Conan Doyle to take him on directly, and so he fights back against him in the press. This is where Molly Goodman comes in, as both Conan Doyle and Houdini use her to talk to each other in much the same way that children who aren't talking to each other utilize their parents. There's a grand aura of mystery around both Houdini and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and Brownstein is wise not to disturb that too much. Instead, he concentrates on the character of Molly Goodman, celebrity reporter, and brings us into her interior life. Unfortunately there isn't anything truly compelling or interesting about Molly, especially compared to Houdini and Conan Doyle. Even her (impressively) stereotypical Jewish parents are more interesting, more alive in some ways, than Molly manages to be. Her actions, reporting, and even sexual ex

Spooks and spirits and criminal fraud...

The year is 1922, the country just recovering fronm World War I, Prohibition a popular cause. Molly Goodman, fresh out of Vassar's School of Journalism, tackles the Spiritualist Movement, arranging an interview with magician Harry Houdini, who introduces her to his literary friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Writing for the New York Radio Times, Molly Goodman, a Jewish feminist, plans on poking fun at Doyle's Spiritualist beliefs, but finds him so noble and well-intentioned that she is soon sympathetic. After seeing a photograph of Doyle and Houdini at the shore, Molly convinces her editor to let her write about the Spiritualist Movement that is all the rage, "holiness through technological means, photographs and scientific studies". The middle-aged Harry Houdini, is not the nimble magic man of his younger years, his body now showing the marks of the rough ropes and heavy chains that bound him, his belly rounded with age, but with the thick thighs of a wrestler: "the magician's greatest trick is to appear ordinary." In contrast, Doyle considers himself "a connoisseur of the supernatural, a public proponent of the scientific study of psychological phenomena, a predictor of the... religious unification under empirically determined metaphysical principles". Doyle has recently come to Atlantic City to investigate the experiment with radio waves, signals received from as far away as Pittsburg. He thinks wireless broadcasting has a profound connection to Spiritualism, although society at large has yet to take Sir Arthur seriously on this matter. Houdini currently claims to be the great debunker of spiritual frauds; for that reason, Doyle is drawn to the magician, appreciating that Houdini deeply respects his religious convictions, called only to expose the trickery of spiritualists who make their fortunes on the desperation of believers. By happenstance, at the beach at Atlantic City with Houdini and their respective families, Doyle makes the acquaintance of the infamous Margery and her spouse, Dr. Hugo Sabatier. Margery is renowned for her séances, where a "pseudopod", an ectoplasmic arm emerges from her body, an extraordinary limb capable of writing messages and generally wreaking havoc in communication with the spirit world. Doyle is a member of The Society for Psychological Research, in good company, with the likes of Sigmund Freud, William James and Alfred Russell Wallace. Molly is the interested observer in the conflict between Houdini and Sir Arthur, with Margery at the center of the debate, Sabatier lurking on the sidelines. Zealously protected by her husband, Margery remains an enigma, as what began as a fascinating quest into a popular movement becomes a scandal, with accusations of murder and criminal fraud. Brownstein breathes life into his characters, especially the charismatic Houdini, a man on the downside of fame, reaching for one more bow in the spotlight; Doyle is equally as fascinating, the stolid, moral man so enamored of the Movem

fantastic historical fictionalized account of the age of spiritualism

In 1922 renowned writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and famous magician Harry Houdini meet over the debate whether spiritualists can communicate with the dead. Doyle believes so while Houdini is a skeptic. In fact at a séance in New Jersey hosted by Doyle's wife, a spiritualist, she makes contact with Houdini's mother. While Doyle defends Margery as a communicator with the dead, who predicts future calamities, Houdini tries to debunk her. While the two men argue the merits of Margery and Lady Doyle, twenty-two years old newspaper reporter Molly Goodman follows them in hope of a scoop. However, the debate seems over before she obtains anything meaty. While doing a magic trick Houdini fails to surface from a locked box dropped in the Hudson River; he actually frees himself but much further upstream, but everyone assumes he is dead. How he plans to reappear in Manhattan and what he will do next needs to decided as he is not finished with the spiritualist. THE MAN FROM BEYOND is a fantastic historical fictionalized account of the age of spiritualism as predominantly seen through the eyes and camera) of the twenty something reporter but also based on real life debates between Doyle the believer and Houdini the skeptic. Readers will feel they are sitting in on a séance hosted by Margery, who's an intriguing character as she predicts future events instead of communicating between loved ones from the other side. Though a villain adds suspense, historical fans will wonder why bother as this terrific 1920s tale robustly stands on its spiritual underpinnings. Harriet Klausner