The Magician and the Cardsharp: The Search for America's Greatest Sleight-of-Hand Artist

by Karl Johnson

Overview

A famous magician's journey to find the greatest cardsharp ever evokes the forgotten world of magic where Americans found escape during the Great Depression

It has the nostalgic quality of an old-fashioned fable, but Karl Johnson's The Magician and the Cardsharp is a true story that lovingly re-creates the sparkle of a vanished world. Here, set against the backdrop of America struggling through the Depression, is the world of magic, a realm of stars, sleight of hand, and sin where dreams could be realized - or stolen away.

Following the Crash of '29, Dai Vernon, known by magicians as "the man who fooled Houdini," is tramping down Midwestern backroads, barely making ends meet. While swapping secrets with a Mexican gambler, he hears of a guy he doesn't quite believe is real - a legendary mystery man who deals perfectly from the center of the deck and who locals call the greatest cardsharp of all time. Determined to find the reclusive genius, Vernon sets out on a journey through America's shady, slick, and sinful side - from mob-run Kansas City through railroad towns that looked sleepy only in the daytime. Does he find the sharp?

Well, Karl Johnson did - after years of research into Vernon's colorful quest, research that led him to places he never knew existed. Johnson takes us to the cardsharp's doorstep and shows us how he bestowed on Vernon the greatest secret in magic. The Magician and the Cardsharp is a unique and endlessly entertaining piece of history that reveals the artistry and obsession of a special breed of American showmen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466833043
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	629 KB

About the Author

Karl Johnson, a former editor at the New York Daily News, has written for many major newspapers and periodicals. The Magician and the Cardsharp grew out of an article published in American Heritage magazine. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

1	Perfect	1
2	Cards on the Tracks	9
3	Pleasant Hill	37
4	With It	61
5	Midnight	91
6	Single-o	115
7	The Best I've Met in Years	151
8	Dice Man	173
9	And a Little Child Shall Lead Them	197
10	The Gambler's Rose	225
11	One Card	253
	Notes	283
	Bibliography	323
	Acknowledgments	331
	Index	339

Editorial Reviews

This book evokes two legends, one in search of the other. The first is Dai Vernon, the long-lived (1894-1992) magician who was renowned as "the man who fooled Houdini." While swapping secrets with a Mexican gambler during the Depression, Vernon heard of a mystery man whose mastery of the deck was so consummate that locals called him "the greatest cardsharp of all time." This magic aficionado couldn't resist the lure: He set out on a pilgrimage through shady lanes and back alleys in the Midwest. Karl Johnson's re-creation of Vernon's colorful quest is a tribute to one man's unquenchable obsession.

With the verve of a master storyteller, Johnson follows Vernon and Kennedy through their development as artisans, pausing here and there to dip us headlong into the vibrantly portrayed worlds of the magician and the cardsharp. Magician is part biography, part portrait of an age and part quest narrative. Mostly, though, it is a celebration of the simple ideas that great beauty can be created from something as ordinary as a deck of cards and that the pursuit of that beauty is a project worth a lifetime's dedication.
—The Washington Post

Anne Ursu

This engrossing detective story traces the quest of Dai Vernon, nee David Verner (1894-1992), to find the man who perfected the art of dealing from the center of the deck. An accomplished card cheat, sleight-of-hand magician and silhouette portraitist, Vernon was so expert at duplicitous card techniques that he once fooled Houdini with tricks he'd learned as a child from S.W. Erdnase's classic The Expert at the Card Table. Proficient at dealing from the top and bottom of the deck, he was astounded to learn that someone in the Midwest had the ability to win by dealing from the center. Johnson, a former editor at New York's Daily News, details Vernon's long search for Allen Kennedy (1865-1961), a cardsharp who plied his trade with loaded dice and deceitful deck handling. By recounting the shadowy careers of these two men, the author successfully evokes the picturesque world of illegal gambling during the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Johnson vividly conveys how obsessed Vernon was with magic and card tricks, and how much time, energy and practice gamblers put into learning how to cheat at cards. Agent, Fred Morris. (Aug. 10) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Dealing cards from the center of the deck, a trick only the most exquisite dealers can manage, forms the heart of journalist Johnson's story of a card artist and crooked gambler. Dai Vernon was a magician, a fine hand at string and colored silks, cups and balls and coins, but he will be remembered for his finesse at cards, his astonishing, natural and casual grace. He was not a gambler, though, and spent much of his life working as a cutter of silhouettes, a pleasant art form affordable even in the Depression era. With Wichita for a hometown, the Vernon that Johnson reveals became a true obsessive: He would spend hours, weeks, years refining his magic technique-he never went in for smoke, mirrors and wires, preferring the sleight-of-the-unadorned-hand along with any psychological subtleties he might work on his mark. Allen Kennedy, on the other hand, was pure cardsharp and shadows: quiet, unassuming and in complete control of the game, stacking and peeking and dealing from the bottom. And Kennedy could deal from the center of the deck, something Vernon had only heard rumors of. Johnson follows Vernon as he manages to track Kennedy down outside Kansas City to learn the trick of the center draw (it requires doing finger exercises practiced by pianists; Johnson is good at explaining the mechanics). It almost seems that Vernon and Kennedy alone had the requisite touch for the center deal, until Johnson notes a tantalizing story. In 1982, a casino surveillance expert was patrolling the catwalks when he witnessed for the first time a sharp dealing from the center. He didn't turn the man in-the stakes simply weren't that high-but observed the rarity from afar and with utter admiration. Like theivory-billed woodpecker, the center deal may be alive and well, comfortably living in secrecy. Johnson's tribute will make you hope so.

Kirkus Reviews

Fascinating . . . This folk history of magic is irresistible.” —Details

“A master storyteller . . . dip[s] us headlong into the vibrantly portrayed worlds . . . part biography, part portrait of an age, and part guest narrative.” —The Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher