I did make a bit of a start to the book. I had a plan of how it might go – consider a particular trick, what the audience saw, what they thought they saw, how it worked, what it meant and so on…Some considerable research would be needed, but it would be interesting, for me at least.
For chapter one, the illusion was the classic Sawing The Lady In Half. Shouldn’t that be Sawing The Lady In Two, or Halves?
The magician is an older man. The lady is the assistant, younger and sexier and usually scantily dressed, or maybe even nude, unless the mechanics of the trick required something else.
I have seen it with a female magician and a male assistant, which looked strange, and a female magician and female assistant.
The lady is tied in a box with ropes protruding, or a smaller box with head, hands and feet out. Or the box is partially transparent, or removed after the girl is in place, or there is no box but the magician stands in front of her while things are done.
Or there are three portions of her, or seven. Or the box is vertical. Or two people are done at the same time, one white and one black, and their parts are swapped. Hmm, social commentary…
The saw is a hand saw, a circular saw, a chain saw, metal plates or glass plates. Some versions cut lengthwise.
The parts of the assistant are separated to ‘prove’ she is in two. Sometimes there is mess.
Then she is put back together, without injury, and people clap.
If it were real, it’s the putting back that would be the clever bit. The rest could be done by anyone, though I suspect sawing someone in half might be very hard. Actually, wasn’t that a plot of CSI once?