- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Published: 5/6/25
- IBSN: 9781636142388
- e-IBSN: 9781636142395
- Genre: Fiction
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Felony Juggler
From Penn Jillette of the legendary magic duo Penn & Teller: a street performer finds himself enmeshed in a crime and must outwit his fellow conspirators in his greatest juggling act yet.
This page is for the standard edition of this book. For the LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE, which includes a signed Glicee print and custom imprinted juggling balls, please follow this link.
Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before May 6, 2025.
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Forthcoming: 5/6/25
What people are saying…
“Penn Jillette’s tremendous new novel is about juggling. Not just literal juggling—though it is the great American juggling novel—but on every metaphoric level too: moral, sexual, biographical, linguistic. Felony Juggler is deep and hilarious, raunchy, breakneck, entertaining, and thoughtful—everything you’d expect from Penn Jillette.”
—Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book
“If you think street performing isn’t fun and bank robbery is fun or that you know how the Rolling Stones make money, you’ve got a lot to learn. And it’s all in Penn Jillette’s can’t-put-it-down page-turner Felony Juggler, where you’ll discover that ‘everything is juggling.'”
—Lawrence O’Donnell, television host
“Penn writes a crime thriller the way he writes a magic trick: he tells you the secret while he fools the hell out of you. Felony Juggler is crazy brilliant!”
—Teller
“This is a brilliant novel, spiked with autobiographical elements . . . Jillette is a nimble writer, taking delight in playing with the language and speaking directly to the reader when it suits him, pulling us into Poe’s story and refusing to let us go. Readers familiar with Jillette only through his numerous appearances on television and in film, as well as those seeking unusual variations on the caper trope, will be surprised and captivated.”
—Booklist
“Jillette follows up Random with this skillful story of a gifted entertainer who gets caught up in violent crime . . . It’s a hoot.”
—Publishers Weekly
Description
This page is for the regular edition of Felony Juggler.
To order the EXCLUSIVE preorder package with an autographed Giclee print and custom imprinted juggling balls. [Click HERE].
In the early 1970s, Poe is living a nomadic life, hopping trains, sleeping rough, and juggling to feed himself. He eventually settles in Philadelphia and masters his street act before ever-growing crowds. When one of his fellow buskers presents him with an opportunity—a bank heist—he should have refused, an innocent bystander is killed, and he splits town a felon.
Unable to resist the lure of performing, he resurfaces halfway across the country as a regular act in a Renaissance Fair(e). Unfortunately, his notoriety outs him to the criminal organization who believes he took something of importance from them during the bank heist. Using all of the wit and misdirection that has made him the best street performer anyone has ever seen, Poe must outsmart and outmaneuver them in order to return to the peaceful life of juggling.
Drawing from his own youthful experience as a nomadic juggler—before earning international acclaim as one half of the magic duo Penn & Teller—Jillette’s madcap thriller is an authentic and often hilarious glimpse into the pleasures and perils of performing on the street.
- Subjects: Forthcoming, Literary Fiction, Mysteries & Crime
- Tags: Felony Juggler, Penn Jillette
Book Details
Author
PENN JILLETTE is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award–winning magic duo Penn & Teller, whose live show spent years on Broadway and is now the longest-running headlining show in Las Vegas. The pair have their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Jillette cohosted the Showtime series Penn & Teller: Bullshit! which was nominated for thirteen Emmy Awards and won him a Writers Guild Award. He currently cohosts the CW Network competition series Penn & Teller: Fool Us! His weekly podcast, Penn’s Sunday School, was the number one downloaded podcast on iTunes during its debut week and was named by iTunes as Best New Comedy Podcast. He is the author of numerous books, including the nonfiction New York Times best-selling books Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales and God No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales; the novel Sock; and the essay collection Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday! He is the author of Random.