‘The Confabulist’ plays on tricks of the mind

Tricks of the mind - from sources external and internal - are central to Steven Galloway's new novel, 'The Confabulist” (Riverhead Books, 304 pages, $27.95). At the heart of the story is Harry Houdini, a man who made legendary escapes. Houdini's tale is balanced by that of Martin Strauss, a man who is seeking his own sort of escape.

We meet Strauss in the present just as he is informed that he has a cognitive disorder that will cause his memoires to be gradually replaced by false remembrances. From there, the story alternates between third person accounts of Houdini's life and career and first person accounts of how Strauss' life intersects with that of the great magician. Throughout the book questions of reality and illusion are considered, and reader gradually becomes aware that things cannot possibly be as they seem.

It's a clever conceit-a narrative grounded in magic that is something of a trick itself. But I didn't find 'The Confabulist” wholly satisfying. The plainspoken prose struck me as too dry for the story being told. Here's Martin on his mother:

'My mother was the only one who ever believed I would amount to anything. She had always seen something in me that no one else, including me, saw. Whenever I exceed expectations, she would act as though a positive outcome was never in doubt. I often regret that I never asked her what she based this outlook on. It seemed risky, as though she might decide it was a foolish attitude if she were to think about it too much.”

This straight-ahead, unadorned style may have been intentional on Galloway's part; he is, after all, making a distinction between the factual and the mysterious, and the straightforward prose may be a comment of sorts. It didn't draw me into the story's mysteries, however, and so I was never fully under the book's spell.

Rob Cline is a writer and published author, marketing director for University of Iowa's Hancher and director of literary events for New Bo Books, a division of Prairie Lights.

Book reading

'What: Steven Galloway reads from 'The Confabulist”

'Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

'When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

'Cost: Free