Houdini and The Pottawatomie Giant

The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Andy Duncan that includes a story about Houdini and heavyweight champ, Jess Willard. According to The Crimson White, Duncan recently attended a book signing, saying:

"[My inspiration was] a paragraph in the biography of Harry Houdini about him being involved with the former heavyweight champion Jess Willard, who was once very famous until he was defeated by Jack Johnson, but now is only known as a footnote to two famous men. I wanted to tell his story, but since I didn’t know it, I made it up instead."

The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories came out in February, but I only now just discovered it along with this photo of the author holding the book. You can see it has a nice illustration of Houdini and Willard on the back (click to enlarge).

Photo: mcwetboy

Unfortunately, The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories is a little tricky to find (at a reasonable price). There is a listing on Amazon, but it's currently out of stock. In addition to the hardcover, there appears to have been a limited edition of 200 signed cloth bound copies.