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The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

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The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

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Overview

A full-color graphic memoir inspired by the award-winning documentary-and the life and mystery of China's greatest magician.

Who was Long Tack Sam?

He was born in 1885. He ran away from Shangdung Province to join the circus. He was an acrobat. A magician. A comic. An impresario. A restaurateur. A theater owner. A world traveler. An East-West ambassador. A mentor to Orson Welles. He was considered the greatest act in the history of vaudeville.

In this gorgeous graphic memoir, his great-granddaughter, the artist and filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming, resurrects his fascinating life for the rest of the world. It's an exhilarating testament to a forgotten man. And every picture is true.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101652916
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/04/2007
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	59 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ann Marie Fleming is an award-winning Canadian independent filmmaker, writer, and artist, born in Okinawa of Chinese and Australian descent. Her critically acclaimed graphic novel, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, was adapted from her same-named documentary film, and is on the American Library Association's list of "10 Best Graphic Novels for Teens.” It was nominated for two Eisner Awards and won the Doug Wright Best Book Award for graphic novels in Canada. Her work primarily deals with themes of family, history, and memory.

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Editorial Reviews

Like the linking-rings magic trick, two stories intertwine: Long Tack Sam's around-the-world life and the transcontinental crusade of his great-granddaughter author Fleming to reanimate him. Relatives and magicians from America to mainland China opened doors for her, uncovered memorabilia, and spun yarns. Trained in China as a magician and acrobat around the turn of the 20th century, Long immigrated to Europe, married an Austrian beauty, and then took American vaudeville by storm. Rubbing elbows with Cary Grant, Jack Benny, and George Burns (who later confirmed Long's skill to Fleming), Long knew everyone and turned up everywhere but refused to act in Hollywood movies because only villainous and despicable character roles were offered to Asians at the time. Thus his story dropped from public knowledge as vaudeville ended. In what amounts to a colorful collage-postcards, clippings, photos, handbills, letters, cartoons, and Fleming's own cheery sketches of Stickgirl-Fleming carries their stories through two world wars, turbulent international politics, and Asian racism. That both Long and Fleming triumphed despite incredible barriers is the real happy ending. Fleming is an independent filmmaker, and this graphic novel is based on her 2003 award-winning, feature-length documentary. Her captivating and moving scrapbook-style portrait is recommended for teen and adult collections.
—Martha Cornog

Library Journal

Just about every aspect of Canadian independent filmmaker and animator Fleming's first foray into graphic literature dazzles like a Broadway marquee. Using as a springboard for this illustrated memoir her award-winning 2003 documentary film of the same title, Fleming tells the amazing, forgotten story of her great-grandfather, Long Tack Sam (1895-1961). He was one of the 20th century's most famous magicians, playing the Palace Theatre, Broadway's top vaudeville house, more often even than Houdini. The rise to popular glory of a small acrobat from a village in China offers his great-granddaughter an opportunity for her own journey of self-discovery. Just as Sam's variety show captivated audiences from Shanghai to New Zealand and New York, Fleming aims here to enchant both young and old with a fascinating scrapbook-style narrative. It's vividly illustrated and quite moving, particularly the portrait of transcontinental love between Sam and Austrian shopgirl Leopoldine Roesler, who married in 1908. What really distinguishes the work, however, is its collage-like, collaborative form. Fleming underscores her belief that "it's hard to know what is true" by including the different versions of Sam's history she encountered in various sources; she chose to have these multiple possibilities illustrated by Julian Lawrence in the ravishing style of a 1930s comic. Gently connecting the dots among episodes in Sam's life, offering captions for the photos and for the found objects from his career, is "Stickgirl," a charming persona drawn by Fleming herself. She narrates the work as a friend sitting next to you on the couch might annotate the pages of a family photo album, an approach that creates greatintimacy. Meanwhile, a timeline of important 20th-century events runs alongside the personal narrative, illustrating how daily life is subject to world affairs. A touching, playful tribute to a vaudeville giant-and so much more.

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