Omer Ali takes a magical mysteries tour with author James Flint

Omer Ali
July 17-24, 2002
Time Out

James Flint's 1998 novel 'Habitus' was for me probably the best British fiction début of the last five years. Flint's combining of the history of computer development with the mysteries of the cabbala was delivered with impressive erudition - and a generous measure of wit. 'Habitus' seemed to chime in with Darren Aronofsky's fearsome first film Pi, and Flint again looks to have achieved some sort of serendipity with his latest, '52 Ways to Magic America', a book set in the world of magic. Channel 4's 'Fifty Greatest Magic Tricks' earlier this year formed part of a kitschy revival, while author G1en David Gold's magical 'Carter Beats the Devil' has received many plaudits.

The central character of '52 Ways...', Martin, is introduced to magic by his American step-uncle Harry, during the months preceding Martin's mother's death. From then on Martin becomes Marty, going on to win the Young Magician of the Year title - and at the same time steal Princess Diana lookalike and magician's assistant Terri away from another contestant.

The book gave Flint a chance to research stage magic and illusions, something he had been fascinated with since childhood. 'You choose a subject in orderto find out about it; it was an excuse to find out about a world that I'd always been interested in.'

Three days at February's annual magicians'convention in Blackpool - an event that forms one of the book's centrepieces - gave the author a chance to enter this closed world, while a few British magicians, who've since become friends, helped point him in the right direction. 'No one at any stage told me how to do a trick, any trick. 1 had to go and find that out for myself.' He began to practise some tricks himself. (With no cards to hand, he demonstrates a pretty nifty little trick to me using a £10 note.)

This has given him a unique perspective on the question of whether he can reveal how tricks are done to readers. 'I give away one or two really basic techniques, but then when I describe the trick I try to walk that line, giving enough away so that it draws the reader in yet allowing it to be a performance so you don't know how it's fully done.'

Understanding how it's done has given him a different appreciation of the performer's art. 'I enjoy magic much more now because when I see a really good magician, what blows me away about them is the performance, the stagecraft. I've come to really appreciate magic as an aesthetic exercise ratherthan as trickery. When I started researching the book I saw [magic] as a deceptive exercise and that's really how Marty thinks of it, and it gnaws away at him.'

One of the equations the book draws is that ambition is a particularly American characteristic, while British ploddingness is represented by the faded seaside towns that 'Martin Mystery's Mysteries' tours in an effort to make the big-time. 'The book's not really about magic, it's about the relationship of Britain and America. What I'm interested in as a writer is the movement of globalisation seen through the lens of that relationship.'

Another particularly strong theme is of growing up, following Marty's maturing from his midteens to mid-twenties. 'Marty thinks he's done it all when he wins Young Magician of the Year and he's reached manhood - actually he's not even begun. 1 want all my characters to go through stuff that impacts on them and changes them; what interests me about people is that process. There is no end point ever, of course.'

By the end, the scene shifts from conjuringto 1997's burgeoning internet world. This shift away from illusions could be seen as a cop-out, but Flint has previously delivered with an illusion of his own devising. 'The thing about buying into dotcoms is that it's an illusion and the dotcom boom had this illusionary, magical quality to it. lt was a bluff in many ways.' It's a metaphorical leap typical of a writer fascinated by technology and the contemporary; the shifting of history beneath him.