Harry’s family figures large in their story, mostly because of his extremely close relationship with his mother, the widow of a poor rabbi. Harry’s warm Jewish mother embraced Bess as a daughter. Bess’s rigid Roman Catholic mother rejected them outright. Additionally, in later life, the Houdinis were contemporaries and acquaintances of a number of celebrities who make appearances in the book, including Jack and Charmain London, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Jean Doyle.Įven beyond their different religious backgrounds, the couple’s families could not have been more dissimilar. Thus begins the story of the Houdinis’ journey-told in chapters that hopscotch between the 1890s to 1944-from poverty and obscurity on the entertainment road in America and Europe, to celebrity, high living, and debt in their New York and Hollywood homes. After a quick introduction to Bess Rahner, the German Catholic vaudeville singer, and Harry Houdini, the Hungarian Jewish vaudeville magician, the book tells quickly of their whirlwind engagement and marriage. Houdini is an engaging addition to the tradition of books that seek to put flesh onto historical, but often obscure, women attached to famous men. By Caroline LeBlanc (poet, Army veteran-and-wife)
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