Q&A with Gail Jarrow

 

 

 

Gail Jarrow is the author of the new young adult book Spirit Sleuths: How Magicians and Detectives Exposed the Ghost Hoaxes. Her other books include American Murderer. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Spirit Sleuths?

 

A: My research for two other books brought me to ghost hoaxes and psychic frauds. 

 

An earlier book, Spooked!: How a Radio Broadcastand The War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America (Calkins Creek, 2018), highlighted what can happen when people are not sufficiently skeptical.

 

In that case, radio listeners jumped to the conclusion that Martians were invading New Jersey.  I wanted to find another example from American history that illustrated the dangers of being gullible.

 

I discovered the subject in my research notes for The Amazing Harry Kellar, Great American Magician (Calkins Creek, 2012). Nineteenth-century magicians like Kellar incorporated séance tricks into their stage performances.

 

Part of their motivation was to take advantage of the public’s interest in spiritualism and communication with the dead. The other part was to educate their audiences so that people realized how mediums, who claimed to have supernatural power, used conjuror’s tricks to deceive séance visitors. 

 

This fascinating tension between magicians  and mediums was the story I’d been looking for.

 

Q: The Shelf Awareness review of the book said, “Jarrow’s remarkable ability to transform meticulous research into a gripping narrative once again results in a nonfiction work that will transfix readers of all ages...” What do you think of that description, and how did you research this book?

 

A: Of course, I was quite pleased by that review. My goal was to grab and entertain readers while basing the story on a solid foundation of accurate information. 

 

To get a broad picture of spiritualism, I used primary documents to find out what believers and critics said about it.

 

Those sources included the writings of mediums, magicians, and investigators as well as first-person accounts of séances from the mid-19th century to the present. I even visited a famous spiritualism community to see mediums at work.

 

Through interviews with practicing magicians, I learned more about the séance tricks and supposedly supernatural phenomena performed by fraudsters who are active in today’s $2 billion U.S. psychic services industry. I shared some of these methods with my readers in sections called “How did they do it?” 

 

Q: What do you see as Harry Houdini’s role in the story?

 

A: Houdini was part of the generation of magicians that came after the Great Harry Kellar. Like his friend Kellar, Houdini used séance tricks in his act.

 

In the years following World War I and the influenza pandemic, spiritualism enjoyed renewed popularity because so many people had died.  

 

Houdini thought that mediums were cruelly deceiving and swindling the grieving survivors who were desperate to communicate with dead loved ones. He set out to expose these dishonest mediums by revealing how they produced ghostly appearances at their séances. 

 

Houdini’s campaign included publishing books and articles, giving public lectures, testifying before Congress, working with the police to identify and arrest scam artists, and incorporating medium exposures into his stage show.

 

He hired a young female detective named Rose Mackenberg to help him in this work. After Houdini’s sudden death in 1926, she carried on his mission and spent nearly 40 years uncovering ghost hoaxes.

 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?

 

A: I hope they’re entertained by the magic and engaged by the conflict between conjurors and mediums.

 

Besides that, I hope this true story shows them the importance of questioning and  analyzing what they hear and see. If young people develop critical thinking skills, they will be less likely to be swayed by anyone who tries to manipulate their beliefs and behavior.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My next nonfiction book will be released in Fall 2025. Called White House Secrets: Medical Lies and Cover-Ups (Calkins Creek/Astra), this book examines nine presidents whose serious illnesses were intentionally hidden from the public.  

 

Many of these medical conditions had negative consequences for the country, yet they remained secret, sometimes for decades. 

 

This will be the fourth book in my Medical Fiascoes series. The others are Blood and Germs (about Civil War medicine); Ambushed! (about the assassination and slow death of President James Garfield), and American Murderer (about the South’s hookworm epidemic and how it ended). 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Gail Jarrow.