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AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies
Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin. But who's flipping it? A thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining work of non-fiction from one of the world's leading deceivers, the creator and star of the astonishing theater show and forthcoming film In & Of Itself.
Derek DelGaudio believed he was a decent, honest man. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, his memories are reawakened and Derek is forced to confront—and try to understand—his role in a significant act of deception from his past.
Using his youthful notebook entries as a road map, Derek embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey, retracing the path that led him to a world populated by charlatans, card cheats, and con artists. As stories are peeled away and artifices are revealed, Derek examines the mystery behind his father's vanishing act, the secret he inherited from his mother, the obsession he developed with sleight-of-hand that shaped his future, and the affinity he felt for the professional swindlers who taught him how to deceive others. And once he finds himself working as a crooked dealer in a big-money Hollywood card game, Derek begins to question his own sense of morality, and discovers that even a master of deception can find himself trapped inside an illusion.
Amoralman is a wildly engaging exploration of the fictions we live as truths. It is ultimately a book about the lies we tell ourselves and the realities we manufacture in others.
Derek DelGaudio believed he was a decent, honest man. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, his memories are reawakened and Derek is forced to confront—and try to understand—his role in a significant act of deception from his past.
Using his youthful notebook entries as a road map, Derek embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey, retracing the path that led him to a world populated by charlatans, card cheats, and con artists. As stories are peeled away and artifices are revealed, Derek examines the mystery behind his father's vanishing act, the secret he inherited from his mother, the obsession he developed with sleight-of-hand that shaped his future, and the affinity he felt for the professional swindlers who taught him how to deceive others. And once he finds himself working as a crooked dealer in a big-money Hollywood card game, Derek begins to question his own sense of morality, and discovers that even a master of deception can find himself trapped inside an illusion.
Amoralman is a wildly engaging exploration of the fictions we live as truths. It is ultimately a book about the lies we tell ourselves and the realities we manufacture in others.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 2, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 507 reviews
March 13, 2021
I found Derek's show "In and Of Itself" mesmerising and I couldn't wait to read Amoralman. I devoured it in a few hours and now I'm looking forward to going back to watch I&OI again because I suspect this book unlocks extra layers within the show. I highly recommend the book. I loved how he tackles the struggle he's felt between tricks and truths.
March 26, 2021
Really enjoyed this. Good writing by a likable guy with something to say. And he didn't take too long to say it.
February 8, 2022
I didn't realize how interested I could become about this man's life and journey. Truly interesting story and characters. I couldn't wait to see what was on the next page. I was truly upset when there was nothing left to read....
September 5, 2022
Something about the cover and the cryptic description on the back of the book intrigued me, so I started this one on a whim. If I had known that it was about a kid who develops a strange obsession learning magic tricks with cards and eventually ends up working as a dealer cheating in shady high-stakes poker games, I probably would have skipped it. Which would have been a shame because it is so much more fascinating than that cursory description would suggest. This book really is everything I would hope for in a memoir — a thoughtful writer describing his crazy experiences living a life so different from my own, and with a remarkable degree of originality and insight.
[Addendum 9/4/22:
Just finished watching “Derek DelGaudio’s In & of Itself” on Hulu and thought it was great. It’s sort of a film version of his very creative Off-Broadway one-man show. Some might classify it as a magic show, but that would really sell it short, as it’s surprisingly moving emotionally. The book and the film each stand on their own, so feel free to watch and read these in whichever order you prefer. ]
[Addendum 9/4/22:
Just finished watching “Derek DelGaudio’s In & of Itself” on Hulu and thought it was great. It’s sort of a film version of his very creative Off-Broadway one-man show. Some might classify it as a magic show, but that would really sell it short, as it’s surprisingly moving emotionally. The book and the film each stand on their own, so feel free to watch and read these in whichever order you prefer. ]
January 3, 2022
Everyone has a story, not every story needs to be a book.
March 15, 2021
https://www.themaineedge.com/style/am...
Introspection is difficult. Looking within ourselves and asking questions about who we are is a challenge that the vast majority of us are unable (or unwilling) to face. One can pay lip service to the notion of self-examination, but the actual doing is hard.
Too often, memoirs trend toward the lip service side of things. That’s not a judgment – it’s tough enough to tell the story of your truth to yourself, let alone to the world. It just means that the autobiographical explorations that really dig into a person’s identity are vanishingly rare.
Derek DelGaudio’s “AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies” is such a rarity, a work of thoughtful, honest self-awareness that isn’t quite like anything I’d ever read before. And believe me – that’s a good thing. It’s a story of truth that is unafraid of untruth, which might sound contradictory, but when you delve into DelGaudio’s words, it makes perfect sense.
This book is magic in multiple senses of the word. It is magic because it is narratively transportive, a book that sweeps the reader up into the world being created, pages crammed with vivid storytelling. But it is also magic in the performative sense, in that it is also about the art of stage magic, specifically sleight-of-hand. And it is magic in that it allows its author to reinvestigate his own history, to use the perspective of the present to change his view of the past – a transformation of both the man he is and the man he once was.
When Derek DelGaudio was a young man, he developed an affinity for (some might say obsession with) the art of prestidigitation – sleight of hand. This devotion to the creation of illusion stayed with him, allowing him to develop a unique set of skills that in many ways transcended the significant gifts of those who came before him.
We learn about his early life, from a father who departed from his life early on to a mother who struggled to raise him alone even as she dealt with drastic changes in her own world. Secrets became a key part of DelGaudio’s everyday life – particularly when he learned a harsh lesson in what can happen when certain secrets are revealed.
His direction is changed forever when he discovers a magic shop, run by a gentleman who would become both a mentor and more than a mentor. This is where DelGaudio’s destiny is cemented, where he begins to learn the skills and techniques that would inform the rest of his life. It is also the beginning of his introduction into some more unsavory circles, when his sphere expands from stage magicians and the like into the shadowy realm of card sharps and mechanics, men whose devotion to making a deck of cards dance wasn’t about performance, but profit. His skills are such that he impresses even these hardened warriors of the poker table, gaining access to some of the hard-won skills that those grizzled grifters possess.
Add another secret to the deck – one that comes at a cost.
When DelGaudio’s path leads him to a crooked high-stakes card game – one where he is enlisted as a dealer to help the house fix the proceedings – he begins to put his skills to use in a very different way. And while he has some initial misgivings, he soon learns that not only is he capable of doing what it takes to fix a card game, he’s good at it. REALLY good.
But that time at the table, while lucrative, comes with its own cost. Specifically, he’s left asking himself the creeping question: am I a good person?
“AMORALMAN” is everything I want in a memoir, including a few things that I didn’t even know I wanted before I read it. It is among the most compelling works of autobiography that I’ve ever read; DelGaudio’s stories of his life would be fascinating enough on their own, but when driven by his tremendous storytelling talents, they’re elevated to the nth degree. It’s as though DelGaudio broke down the form into its component parts and then reassembled them with the same dexterous deftness with which he handles a deck of cards.
And make no mistake, he’s as gifted a memory mechanic as he is a card mechanic. Even with a more-or-less linear narrative thread, DelGaudio proves unafraid to occasionally deal from the middle or the bottom of the deck, giving us the hand he wants us to have rather than leaving it up to fate. He doesn’t want us to have a chance to win, but a guarantee. In his hands, the game is not a game, but a foregone conclusion.
The idea that one could bring to life the intricacies of this world through the written word, both in the macro sense of interpersonal dynamics and in the micro sense of sleight of hand minutiae, would seem nigh-impossible on its face. Yet DelGaudio does it with seeming ease – the reader can feel the stresses and satisfactions of it all, brought to bright life.
There’s a brilliant framing story, one that ties it all together and whose details I’ll let you discover for yourself. Oh, and it all kicks off with a version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. All of this, mind you, pays off at high-stakes-fixed-card-game levels.
“AMORALMAN” is a memoir unlike any other, beautifully written and brilliantly conceived. Derek DelGaudio is an artist whose work defies categorization; this book is an unexpected, yet completely logical extension of the also-brilliant stage show “In & Of Itself” (which, if you haven’t seen it, there’s a filmed version on Hulu and you have never seen its like). He is a one-of-one, a creative unicorn – a legitimately unique talent. I genuinely cannot wait to see what he does next.
Introspection is difficult. Looking within ourselves and asking questions about who we are is a challenge that the vast majority of us are unable (or unwilling) to face. One can pay lip service to the notion of self-examination, but the actual doing is hard.
Too often, memoirs trend toward the lip service side of things. That’s not a judgment – it’s tough enough to tell the story of your truth to yourself, let alone to the world. It just means that the autobiographical explorations that really dig into a person’s identity are vanishingly rare.
Derek DelGaudio’s “AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies” is such a rarity, a work of thoughtful, honest self-awareness that isn’t quite like anything I’d ever read before. And believe me – that’s a good thing. It’s a story of truth that is unafraid of untruth, which might sound contradictory, but when you delve into DelGaudio’s words, it makes perfect sense.
This book is magic in multiple senses of the word. It is magic because it is narratively transportive, a book that sweeps the reader up into the world being created, pages crammed with vivid storytelling. But it is also magic in the performative sense, in that it is also about the art of stage magic, specifically sleight-of-hand. And it is magic in that it allows its author to reinvestigate his own history, to use the perspective of the present to change his view of the past – a transformation of both the man he is and the man he once was.
When Derek DelGaudio was a young man, he developed an affinity for (some might say obsession with) the art of prestidigitation – sleight of hand. This devotion to the creation of illusion stayed with him, allowing him to develop a unique set of skills that in many ways transcended the significant gifts of those who came before him.
We learn about his early life, from a father who departed from his life early on to a mother who struggled to raise him alone even as she dealt with drastic changes in her own world. Secrets became a key part of DelGaudio’s everyday life – particularly when he learned a harsh lesson in what can happen when certain secrets are revealed.
His direction is changed forever when he discovers a magic shop, run by a gentleman who would become both a mentor and more than a mentor. This is where DelGaudio’s destiny is cemented, where he begins to learn the skills and techniques that would inform the rest of his life. It is also the beginning of his introduction into some more unsavory circles, when his sphere expands from stage magicians and the like into the shadowy realm of card sharps and mechanics, men whose devotion to making a deck of cards dance wasn’t about performance, but profit. His skills are such that he impresses even these hardened warriors of the poker table, gaining access to some of the hard-won skills that those grizzled grifters possess.
Add another secret to the deck – one that comes at a cost.
When DelGaudio’s path leads him to a crooked high-stakes card game – one where he is enlisted as a dealer to help the house fix the proceedings – he begins to put his skills to use in a very different way. And while he has some initial misgivings, he soon learns that not only is he capable of doing what it takes to fix a card game, he’s good at it. REALLY good.
But that time at the table, while lucrative, comes with its own cost. Specifically, he’s left asking himself the creeping question: am I a good person?
“AMORALMAN” is everything I want in a memoir, including a few things that I didn’t even know I wanted before I read it. It is among the most compelling works of autobiography that I’ve ever read; DelGaudio’s stories of his life would be fascinating enough on their own, but when driven by his tremendous storytelling talents, they’re elevated to the nth degree. It’s as though DelGaudio broke down the form into its component parts and then reassembled them with the same dexterous deftness with which he handles a deck of cards.
And make no mistake, he’s as gifted a memory mechanic as he is a card mechanic. Even with a more-or-less linear narrative thread, DelGaudio proves unafraid to occasionally deal from the middle or the bottom of the deck, giving us the hand he wants us to have rather than leaving it up to fate. He doesn’t want us to have a chance to win, but a guarantee. In his hands, the game is not a game, but a foregone conclusion.
The idea that one could bring to life the intricacies of this world through the written word, both in the macro sense of interpersonal dynamics and in the micro sense of sleight of hand minutiae, would seem nigh-impossible on its face. Yet DelGaudio does it with seeming ease – the reader can feel the stresses and satisfactions of it all, brought to bright life.
There’s a brilliant framing story, one that ties it all together and whose details I’ll let you discover for yourself. Oh, and it all kicks off with a version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. All of this, mind you, pays off at high-stakes-fixed-card-game levels.
“AMORALMAN” is a memoir unlike any other, beautifully written and brilliantly conceived. Derek DelGaudio is an artist whose work defies categorization; this book is an unexpected, yet completely logical extension of the also-brilliant stage show “In & Of Itself” (which, if you haven’t seen it, there’s a filmed version on Hulu and you have never seen its like). He is a one-of-one, a creative unicorn – a legitimately unique talent. I genuinely cannot wait to see what he does next.
December 29, 2020
In the mids 80s, Monty Python’s Graham Chapman wrote his autobiography. He titled it A Liar’s Autobiography, and the preface was by the six co-authors. Now, Derek DelGaudio has published his own, called Amoralman, a chain of memoirs about people who lie, cheat and steal, as well as magicians who simply deceive. Spot the difference?
DelGaudio’s story is much more cohesive. It is a very well-constructed collection of memories, often introduced by mysterious stories that later play into the memoir and are thereby explained. He keeps the reader’s interest, because really, no one ever knows where this is going.
DelGaudio was/is the product of a broken marriage. He lacked drive, ambition and persistence. No friends, no relatives, a gay mother, and an unsociable loner. That is until he discovered magic and a magicians’ store. He was so enamored of it all he practiced until he was a polished expert, and took a job at the store, impressing customers and getting them to buy their own. Never finished high school.
The weird thing is, he has one huge problem with his skills; he will not perform tricks in public, he says. This rather limits his potential. He says his hands turn to painful ice at the prospect of merely having to deal a poker game, even an honest one.
But not to fear. The store owner helps him network his way to famous magicians and hustlers. He befriends one hustler and takes over his crooked dealer position when the hustler gets busted. The story really takes off when readers learn the massive shakedown going on in this Beverly Hills (rented) mansion, where rich amateurs are relieved of their stakes every week. Thanks in no small part to our hero,
It’s an education in the finer points of cheating, as well as the arcane facets of poker. All of the footnotes in the book explain poker terms and jargon.
There are some surprises. His hustler friend shamelessly drives from town to town, betting the locals on things they are certain they’re right about. But the fix is in, and they always lose. Apparently this is not sufficiently lucrative, and Ronnie, as DelGaudio calls him, always has trouble making even the modest rent on his Las Vegas apartment. He is paranoid, screening his calls, hiding his phone number and watching his back, which has been stabbed several times already. Then about a hundred pages after they meet, it turns out Ronnie is black, a trifling detail DelGaudio sloughs off like deuce of clubs. There is no discussion of different swindles for different folks or how a white kid and a black hustler differ in their approaches – or anything race related at all. It makes it remarkable Ronnie has even lived this long, let alone continues to hustle the locals in rural America. And perhaps tells readers why everything has been so difficult in Ronnie’s life. But a hundred pages later? That is bizarre.
In the end, our hero discovers, at least he thinks, that he has been hustled by his own boss, the host of the poker game. Seems the boss and his son have been purposely losing big to an insider third player, in order to reduce the gross of which DelGaudio gets a percentage. So despite making the best money in his short life - a minimum of $2500 a night - (he is in his early 20s!), DelGaudio learns he should have made a whole lot more. So he quits.
And there it ends.
So the question poses itself: have readers been hustled too? Does any of this have even the remotest connection to truth? Are any of the (very rich, colorful and detailed) characters real? It is, after all, titled Amoralman, where none of the key players has the slightest compunction over lying, cheating and swindling. So has DelGaudio swindled readers too?
Regardless of the truth, it’s great ride by a fine storyteller.
David Wineberg
DelGaudio’s story is much more cohesive. It is a very well-constructed collection of memories, often introduced by mysterious stories that later play into the memoir and are thereby explained. He keeps the reader’s interest, because really, no one ever knows where this is going.
DelGaudio was/is the product of a broken marriage. He lacked drive, ambition and persistence. No friends, no relatives, a gay mother, and an unsociable loner. That is until he discovered magic and a magicians’ store. He was so enamored of it all he practiced until he was a polished expert, and took a job at the store, impressing customers and getting them to buy their own. Never finished high school.
The weird thing is, he has one huge problem with his skills; he will not perform tricks in public, he says. This rather limits his potential. He says his hands turn to painful ice at the prospect of merely having to deal a poker game, even an honest one.
But not to fear. The store owner helps him network his way to famous magicians and hustlers. He befriends one hustler and takes over his crooked dealer position when the hustler gets busted. The story really takes off when readers learn the massive shakedown going on in this Beverly Hills (rented) mansion, where rich amateurs are relieved of their stakes every week. Thanks in no small part to our hero,
It’s an education in the finer points of cheating, as well as the arcane facets of poker. All of the footnotes in the book explain poker terms and jargon.
There are some surprises. His hustler friend shamelessly drives from town to town, betting the locals on things they are certain they’re right about. But the fix is in, and they always lose. Apparently this is not sufficiently lucrative, and Ronnie, as DelGaudio calls him, always has trouble making even the modest rent on his Las Vegas apartment. He is paranoid, screening his calls, hiding his phone number and watching his back, which has been stabbed several times already. Then about a hundred pages after they meet, it turns out Ronnie is black, a trifling detail DelGaudio sloughs off like deuce of clubs. There is no discussion of different swindles for different folks or how a white kid and a black hustler differ in their approaches – or anything race related at all. It makes it remarkable Ronnie has even lived this long, let alone continues to hustle the locals in rural America. And perhaps tells readers why everything has been so difficult in Ronnie’s life. But a hundred pages later? That is bizarre.
In the end, our hero discovers, at least he thinks, that he has been hustled by his own boss, the host of the poker game. Seems the boss and his son have been purposely losing big to an insider third player, in order to reduce the gross of which DelGaudio gets a percentage. So despite making the best money in his short life - a minimum of $2500 a night - (he is in his early 20s!), DelGaudio learns he should have made a whole lot more. So he quits.
And there it ends.
So the question poses itself: have readers been hustled too? Does any of this have even the remotest connection to truth? Are any of the (very rich, colorful and detailed) characters real? It is, after all, titled Amoralman, where none of the key players has the slightest compunction over lying, cheating and swindling. So has DelGaudio swindled readers too?
Regardless of the truth, it’s great ride by a fine storyteller.
David Wineberg
February 10, 2022
A fascinating story about the crossroads of magicians and poker. Delgaudio is a good storyteller.
October 4, 2022
This was a delightful read! I had watched his show "In & Of Itself" first, which inspired me to read his book. The way he writes is so unique and authentic. It really made me understand his show a lot more and my sister and I immediately rewatched it. Derek has such an interesting life, and I would like to read anything else he writes. He connected with his audience and I think that makes him a very effective storyteller.
February 23, 2024
This was ok. Pretty flat read throughout, but I liked reading about the poker matches and I learned some new vocabulary about the game that I didn’t know before. So that was cool. It was short too so not a big time investment.
April 23, 2021
Really exceptional story. Thought provoking throughout. Derek's upbringing is one of resilience that created a dreamer who pursued his destiny.
June 3, 2021
Much like the show "In and of Itself" this book is going to be on my mind for awhile. Not as long because there weren't any tricks involved but you know. The life lessons here are the kind of things you learn when you're younger and only realize they're lessons later so you try to tell them to other people - younger people - in the hopes they don't make the same mistakes. It doesn't work though.
If you do decide to read the book, it isn't necessarily a requirement that you have seen the show. Movie. whatever, it's on Hulu. Anyway. You do learn more about the man in the show though and maybe even learn something about yourself (cue rainbow) in the process.
If you do decide to read the book, it isn't necessarily a requirement that you have seen the show. Movie. whatever, it's on Hulu. Anyway. You do learn more about the man in the show though and maybe even learn something about yourself (cue rainbow) in the process.
March 31, 2021
AMORALMAN is a light and easy read, and while it does captivate as it illuminates the inner workings of a private poker game, it also left me wanting something a little deeper or more developed. I didn't really get much more out of it than I did listening to an interview that the author did on NPR. The documentary IN AND OF ITSELF, also by Derek Delgaudio, goes to more interesting places and it's great to see the sleight of hand card tricks. I can recommend this book for what it is and I enjoyed breezing through it.
April 14, 2021
First for me. Started this book at the DC train station, read the entire ride, finished it same night when I got back to Brooklyn. Absolute banger. Hard cover finger on paper banger. Prolly best book I read in 2021 so far.
January 31, 2024
Wondering if I was amoralwoman for finishing this book at work. This was surprisingly gripping. It’s a reflection of the author’s life growing up as the only son of a single mother, getting into magic tricks, and eventually being a card cheat. Nothing is superfluous here — the chapters pass very breezily, and as other reviewers have pointed out, it was easy to get invested in his story. The invention in this particular memoir is tying his personal story and the world of deception with Plato’s cave — how poker players wanted to believe they were good, a part of the game, and how the illusions were being perpetuated by the puppeteers.
I have never gambled in my life, nor was interested in card games and board games, and have even less interest in doing so after reading this book.
“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.
The most convincing characters were the donks themselves. Over and over again, I watched them validate one another’s belief that what they were experiencing was real. And to them it was real. They believed, with every fiber of their beings, that they were poker players, playing poker. They were as certain of their reality as you are of yours right now.
I had thought that the only thing I was taking from them was their money. But after seeing them in their chains, it was painfully clear to me that theft was the lesser of two crimes. They weren’t poker players. They were prisoners, trapped by an illusion, unable to escape because they believed they were already free.”
I have never gambled in my life, nor was interested in card games and board games, and have even less interest in doing so after reading this book.
“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.
The most convincing characters were the donks themselves. Over and over again, I watched them validate one another’s belief that what they were experiencing was real. And to them it was real. They believed, with every fiber of their beings, that they were poker players, playing poker. They were as certain of their reality as you are of yours right now.
I had thought that the only thing I was taking from them was their money. But after seeing them in their chains, it was painfully clear to me that theft was the lesser of two crimes. They weren’t poker players. They were prisoners, trapped by an illusion, unable to escape because they believed they were already free.”
Read
October 1, 2022THIS WAS PHENOMENAL
No one's doing it like Derek DelGaudio, truly. I'm hesitant to dispense labels such as "genius" and "Icon of Our Generation," since that does feel excessive... but sometimes the writing demands it. I finished this book in under a day-- every chapter felt absolutely thrilling. This book prompted some very long discussions of deception, truth, secrecy, and poker in my home (all very exciting). I can't wait to see what he does next.
No one's doing it like Derek DelGaudio, truly. I'm hesitant to dispense labels such as "genius" and "Icon of Our Generation," since that does feel excessive... but sometimes the writing demands it. I finished this book in under a day-- every chapter felt absolutely thrilling. This book prompted some very long discussions of deception, truth, secrecy, and poker in my home (all very exciting). I can't wait to see what he does next.
February 11, 2023
was planning to give this a 3. it’s very reddit/vegas/fedora vibes and has daps from neils both gaiman and brennan. i bought it on a whim because the synopsis seemed meta in an interesting way. but if you can get over the corny poker rhetoric (it is the story of a magician turned card counter) and the fact that there’s really almost nothing to this prose — just totlly swagless writing, for the most part — it really does pay off. literally in the final chapter or maybe final few paragraphs.
April 27, 2021
Amusing memoir about a young man who suffers in high school and is not a good student but loves magic. He gets lured in by a man in Denver who is an expert in cards and taught to cheat during poker. It begins a string of incidents in which he’s trying to con people at cards then gambling at horse races, but he’s naive enough to think he’s the only person conning the others. He’s not and the game gets more dangerous. His boss card shark ends up in prison but that still doesn’t stop our author. I like it but am probably not the reader for books on the pleasure of gambling.
April 25, 2023
I bought this book after watching DelGaudio’s special on Hulu, “In & of Itself” which I thought was fantastic. The book didn’t disappoint! Part memoir of a magician turned criminal con man, part philosophy book. Great read (and go watch his special!)
March 20, 2024
A super fascinating story! An easy read, especially considering it is an autobiography, but it comes with all the deep thinking feels. What is honesty, what is deceit, is there that much distance between the two? Told from a magician’s point of view. Very interesting.
March 19, 2022
Everything you want in a memoir about a person you didn’t know anything about before picking up the book!
Also watch his one man show on Hulu “In and of Itself”
Also watch his one man show on Hulu “In and of Itself”
February 12, 2024
This was so fun to read
March 2, 2024
Solid read.
After you’ve read it, you should check out @cardmagicbyjason on instagram for some relevant tricks
After you’ve read it, you should check out @cardmagicbyjason on instagram for some relevant tricks
March 29, 2022
This was an addictive journey through the art of deception. I loved how Delgaudio peeled back the layers of his con to demonstrate how he was also fooling himself, and that ending, FULL CIRCLE!!!
March 27, 2022
Literally read in 2 days. Didn’t want to put it down.
June 4, 2023
Based on the (true-ish) plot line, I probably shouldn’t have liked this, but it sucked me in.
March 7, 2022
It took me a minute to get into this book but once I finished it I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There’s such an interesting perspective throughout this book that I spent a lot of time trying to analyze and decipher. I love books that make me think and this one definitely had me doing so. By the end, I was questioning my own perspective and reality as a whole.
October 21, 2021
I was a late to watch Hulu’s In and Of Itself, but the moment my inaugural viewing ended, I knew I was buying whatever Derek DelGaudio was selling. Conveniently enough, he was selling a book! I bought it the following week.
Amoralman retraces some of the steps taken in his Hulu special, but more importantly zooms in on the subject DelGaudio seems to be fascinated: the truth. More importantly, the truth we present to others, to ourselves, the truths we hold dear to our hearts and the lies we tell to protect the ones we love. As a stage magician, illusionist and former cheat-dealer, part of his job is to deceive. And in living a life of deceit, he shows us the good in the seediest people and the bad in those we assume to be upstanding.
This book, much like his special, left me deep in thought for a while after I finished it. It’s certainly introspective and made me take a good look at myself, and the self I present to the world.
High recommend.
Amoralman retraces some of the steps taken in his Hulu special, but more importantly zooms in on the subject DelGaudio seems to be fascinated: the truth. More importantly, the truth we present to others, to ourselves, the truths we hold dear to our hearts and the lies we tell to protect the ones we love. As a stage magician, illusionist and former cheat-dealer, part of his job is to deceive. And in living a life of deceit, he shows us the good in the seediest people and the bad in those we assume to be upstanding.
This book, much like his special, left me deep in thought for a while after I finished it. It’s certainly introspective and made me take a good look at myself, and the self I present to the world.
High recommend.
March 10, 2021
When I saw In & Of Itself in New York, my friend and I spent hours discussing the show. I was completely mesmerized - so much so that we promptly bought tickets for another show later in the week. We sat in the front row and were completely mesmerized all over again. The performance was remarkable but the stories truly stuck with me. Reading this felt like getting a glimpse behind the curtain and once again I am mesmerized. Derek is an incredible storyteller I can feel myself preparing for a loop of viewing In & Of Itself and then re-reading this book. I devoured this book in one day but I suspect it consumed me.
March 28, 2021
Huge fan of In and Of Itself. This was a really great continuation of the truth claim broached in the show. Definitely missing some artistry (in terms of language and prose), and of course I wish the stories could be backed up by the actual dealings, instead of just descriptions. First ~50 or so pages felt pretty bland, but once I passed his childhood the stories really started picking up. The basic language ultimately did help with the “true story and other lies” element of the novel.
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