AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies

I knew it wasn’t an honest living, but it felt like I had earned it.

His grandfather was a Scottish immigrant who made his drinking money by boxing in bars. The Scotsman trained his son, Walter’s dad, to slip jabs and throw mean right hooks, hoping the boy would one day fight for a real title. But Walter’s dad was an asthmatic and, instead of going the distance, he ended up repairing refrigerators for a living.

“What’s with the puppeteer?” I asked. “What do you mean?” “The story barely mentions the puppeteer and then he vanishes. Who was that person? What’s with putting shadows on the wall? Was that his job? A hobby? If it was his job, why was that a job?” “I’m not sure,” she said. “Why do you think the puppeteer was there?” “How should I know?”

Had the cave not revealed itself, I might have stayed and continued chasing the shadow of a father.

Walter had amassed a collection of hundreds of tapes, footage of wonder-workers that was otherwise impossible to find. He had clips dating back to 1896 and Georges Méliès’s vanishing act, Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin. A seven-year-old Ricky Jay changing a guinea pig into a dove on the 1955 program Time for Pets. Every magician who ever

“I hope you found what you were looking for.”

I wasn’t uninterested in receiving an education; I just didn’t care for the curriculum they offered.

These unknowing actors were oblivious to the story they were telling and completely ignorant of this crucial fact: Their truths were in service of a lie.

parasomnia,