Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold. This is another "plot-heavy, moderately literary, not at all experimental historical novel about entertainers" (to lift a phrase from Steve Cook), in the same basic mode as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (occasional bits also resonate (unsurprisingly) with Christopher Priest's The Prestige). It tells the epic story of Charles Carter ("Carter the Great"), a magician of some renown, who invites President Warren Harding on stage during his signature illusion (which gives the books its name) one night:
Carter, Harding, and the Devil retired to the poker table, where a deck of oversized cards awaited them. Harding gamely tried to shuffle the huge cards-- the deck was the size of a newspaper-- until one of Carter's assistants took over the duty. As the game progressed, the Devil cheated outrageously: for instance, a giant mirror floated over Carter's left shoulder until Harding pointed it out, whereupon it vanished.
Carter had been presenting his evening of magic at the Curran for two weeks. Each night had ended the same way: he would present a seemingly unbeatable hand, over which the Devil would then, by cheating, triumph. Carter would stand, knocking over his chair, saying the game between gentlemen was over, and the Devil was no gentleman, sir, and he would wave a scimitar at the Devil. The Devil would ride an uncoiling rope like an elevator cable up to the rafters, out of the audience's sight. A moment later, Carter, scimitar clenched between his teeth, would conjure his own rope and follow. And then, with a chorus of off-stage shrieks and moans, Carter would quite vividly, and bloodily, show the audience what it meant to truly beat the Devil.
Carter's programs advertised the presence of a nurse should anyone in the audience faint while he took his revenge.
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