For most, I imagine the name “Derek Delgaudio” is shrouded in mystery. His Wikipedia page says he’s an “interdisciplinary artist primarily known as a writer, performer, and magician.” He was an artist in residence for Walt Disney Imagineering. He consulted for The Prestige. My first encounter with Delgaudio was his stage show, In & Of Itself, which I wholeheartedly recommend. I picked up Amoralman after becoming enraptured with In & Of Itself, and it languished on my shelf for a few years before, just a few days ago, I picked it up.
Amoralman is a semi-autobiographical tale of Delgaudio’s adolescence and early adult life, chronicling his youth, his early career, and a climax that sees him dealing a high-stakes poker game as a card cheat. Delgaudio obsesses over lies and deception and where a person can or should employ them. His life path takes him into the realm of musicianship, but he doesn’t love the performance aspect of it. His proclivities turn him to the underworld of illegal gambling, where he meets many of the world’s biggest cheats and deceivers. An intriguing format, to be sure, and it’s made more interesting by the questions it raises. Is any of Delgaudio’s story true? Which parts has he twisted to serve his narrative? Which elements are lifted from someone else’s story? And the big one: do the answers actually matter?
Like his stage show, Delgaudio’s book ruminates on the nature of stories and their impact on us. Does it make a difference if he, the author, shares an anecdote as though it happened to him even when it didn’t? Or should he provide us with a secondhand account and risk losing some of the credibility he’s built so far? I think Delgaudio exists to stretch the rules and appreciate the possibilities and impact over the facts. By the end of Amoralman, I wasn’t sure whether to believe any of the words I’d just read, even when (or perhaps especially when) they overlapped with his stories from In & Of Itself, as a few of them do. Pondering the book after closing the back cover, I thought about how much I enjoyed the journey. Much like a fantasy or sci-fi book, Amoralman doesn’t concern itself with literal, factual truth. It is as much an escapist romp as anything with a genre label, and the book is better for it.
Delgaudio’s writing style goes a long way in Amoralman. He presents his story and ideas clearly and without much flashy prose. It’s what I want every memoir I’ve ever read to sound like, instead of the ghost-written money-grabs they so often are. Pair the easy breezy prose with a short page count (roughly 230 pages), and you’ve got a speedy read that sets forth its ideas, tells the story it sets out to tell, and ends with a nice little twist. It’s a perfect selection for your next flight or rainy day, and I can attest to the latter—I read the book over the course of two miserable Chicago weather days.
I’ve mentioned In & Of Itself a few times now, and I will urge you once more to watch it. I recommend watching the show before reading Amoralman, but I don’t think consuming either will ruin your experience with the other. In my view, they’re best sipped as a swig and a chaser instead of separate menu items.
Rating: Amoralman – 8.5/10
-Cole
