Hocus Pocus
A Novel
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- Vorbestellbar
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- Erwartet am 11. Aug. 2026
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- 14,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A young magician travels across the world seeking fame and fortune all the while hiding a secret, in a novel based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s.
Samuel Thomas, a man of uncertain parentage, is a young magician convinced that he is destined for greatness in a far-off land. Seeking honor and acclaim, he journeys across the globe—from India to London to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension.
Enter Walter Mepham: in some ways a world away from Samuel, hailing from the upper echelons of Boston society, but also nursing a problem of his own. Proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy, Walter is desperate to find ways to keep it open—and Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection.
While the perfect solution to each other’s problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated as Walter grows more and more fascinated, and even obsessed, with the young foreigner. As Samuel becomes subsumed within the museum and dependent on Walter, he must reckon with just how much he’s willing to give up to achieve success. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Charry's spectacular sophomore outing (after The East Indian) follows an ambitious young magician's odyssey from India to America. Samuel Thomas, a mixed-race child born in the late 18th century who never knows his parents, is raised in an English-speaking Madras orphanage before leaving for England, where he spends a few years performing magic. Hiding his attraction to men and seeking a fresh start after the death of his lover and performing partner, Kabir, in tragic circumstances, Samuel immigrates to Boston in May 1816 at age 25. There he meets Walter Mepham, an obsessive collector of oddities who showcases his acquisitions at his New Boston Museum. Deep in debt and desperate to purchase new items, Mepham turns to shady moneylenders and hires Samuel to perform at the museum. Samuel chafes at Mepham's insistence that he darken his skin and perform under the stage name Fakir of Benares, and his act reawakens memories of Kabir. Meanwhile, Mepham's lenders threaten him and Samuel with violence over unpaid debts. Charry vividly describes Samuel's stagecraft (a "mutilated handkerchief is made whole; ribbons in a riot of color are drawn from his mouth; a carpet changes colors and patterns each time it is turned over"), and lays bare the sordid racist tropes of early American entertainment. It's a marvel.
