A Conversation with the Author
What inspired you to write The Magician’s Lie?
In the beginning, it was a very simple idea: I realized that I had read and seen countless references to male magicians cutting a woman in half but had never heard of a woman cutting a man in half. I decided to research it and found that stage magic is one of those fields that has really historically been dominated by men all along, with a few interesting exceptions. One of those exceptions was Adelaide Herrmann. I decided that her performance of the Bullet Catch in New York City in 1897 (a real event) would be the perfect inspiration for my protagonist to enter the world of magic. And the Amazing Arden was born.
Was that the reason you decided to set The Magician’s Lie at the turn of the century?
Yes and no. Integrating Adelaide into the story intrigued me, but the main driving force was the place in culture I wanted Arden to occupy. In the present day, we’re intrigued by professional stage magicians, but they don’t occupy a central place in popular entertainment. Most people could probably name a couple of magicians: Criss Angel, David Blaine, David Copperfield, maybe Doug Henning (am I dating myself?). I wanted Arden to have true fame and true infamy because of the Halved Man. And for her to be a real pioneer in the field, I decided that right at the turn of the century was the best possible time.
So Adelaide Herrmann is real. What about the other characters? Fictional, inspired by real people, or somewhere in between?
George Vanderbilt, of course, was a real person, though I’ve played a little fast and loose with what we know of the early days of Biltmore. “Somewhere in between” fiction and fact would describe how I’ve integrated history throughout the book. The guests I mention attending that first Christmas party at the Biltmore—like the future President McKinley—are on record as visiting Biltmore, but not necessarily on that date. The prima ballerina assoluta Madama Bonfanti was real, though there is no evidence she visited Biltmore or even traveled seeking students for her school.
Some of the magicians Clyde and Arden discuss are real players of the time, and some aren’t. Same with the theaters in which she performs. The Iroquois Theatre fire, tragically, was very real, resulting in more than six hundred deaths due to the exact conditions described in Arden’s retelling—doors that opened in instead of out, locked gates between the levels of the theater, really terrible contributing factors that made the disaster so much worse. That was hard both to read about and to write about.
My intent throughout the book was to integrate history in a way that enriches and expands the story I wanted to tell, without feeling hidebound by exactly what happened to whom and when. After all, Arden has a magical power of healing her own wounds. This is a novel and not a historical document, clearly.
Speaking of that, where did Arden’s healing power come from?
Actually, there were drafts of the story both with and without the magical element. But I was fascinated by the idea of a magician who really does have magical powers, and even more, by the idea of a man of the law who is practical and realistic, but also has no problem believing that supernatural things can happen. I wanted Arden’s power to have limits. She’s not a superhero. So her healing power only goes so far.
You said there were different drafts of the story. Was the ending always the same?
That was one of the few parts that stayed the same the whole time! The beginning changed, the characters changed, the magic changed, nearly everything changed. But I always knew what I was working toward: the reveal to the audience and Holt alike that Ray was the dead “husband” we saw at the beginning of the book, followed closely by Arden’s successful escape. I just love that kind of pit-of-the-stomach realization as a reader, so as a writer, I wanted to deliver on that for my readers. Arden was never guilty of the crime in any draft that I wrote. I did want the reader to have lots of doubts about her along the way, but I always wanted her to get her happy ending, or as close to it as possible.
How long did it take you to write this book?
Sometimes it feels like forever! I think from the first moment I wondered “What if a female magician cut a man in half onstage?” to turning in the final draft to my editor was about five years. Part of that was the research. I’d been writing fiction for years, but never historical, and it really changed my writing process. I kept getting distracted—if there was a scene where I wanted a character to put on a hat, I wanted to know what kind of hat it would have been, so I’d stop writing and go to the Internet. And you know what happens with the Internet. Two hours later, you know everything about hats of the 1890s, but you haven’t written a single word. Eventually I found a way to put in placeholders and come back later with details, but that took a while. There were also a couple of major revisions, and I’d set myself a pretty serious task by interweaving what happens in the “present” story (the 1905 police station scenes) and the story that Arden is telling in the “past” (from 1890 onward). Every change rippled through the whole book. I’m really thrilled with the result, but there were some tough days in there. Writing is rewriting.
Arden is very clearly the central character of The Magician’s Lie. Is she the character you feel most closely connected to?
Well, yes and no. Arden keeps most people at arm’s length throughout the story, and I felt like she was doing that to me a little too. I knew she was telling the truth to Holt, but I also knew she didn’t entirely trust him. And even though she loves Clyde desperately, she’s still suspicious of his motives. That’s not really me. In a way, I identified more with Adelaide. She’s brusque and sharp and imperfect, but you know where you stand with her. I admired her courage and intelligence just as much as I admired Arden’s. Most of my early readers picked Adelaide out as their favorite character. I’m actually thinking about giving her her own book next.
What do you love most about writing?
I love creating something out of nothing. It starts with just the spark of an idea, some small inspiration, and grows into this entire world of the novel. A full cast of characters who feel real, all the words they speak, all the actions they take. It’s all just words on the page. And then to have a real effect on readers? That’s the most amazing thing. It’s the closest thing to magic I think we really have in life, other than love. Writers are illusionists who work in words. I love being that kind of magician.
About the Author
Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister is a poet, short story writer, playwright, and novelist whose work has appeared in publications such as The North American Review, The Missouri Review, and The Messenger. Her plays have been performed at American University, where she earned her MFA in creative writing. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.