Early Reviewers

Since well before his epic 1974 walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and up to the present moment, Philippe Petit has been an artist who answers first and foremost to the demands of his craft – not only on the high wire but as a juggler and street performer, magician, visual artist, and writer. A born rebel like many creative people, from an early age he was a voracious learner who taught himself and found the mentors he needed, cultivating the courage and resourcefulness to tackle even seemingly impossible feats. His sense of himself as an outlaw spawned a unique approach to the creative process – an approach he shares, with characteristic enthusiasm, irreverence, and originality, in Creativity: The Perfect Crime. Making the reader his accomplice, he reveals new and unconventional ways of thinking about – and tackling – the artistic endeavor, from generating and shaping ideas (“scheming”) to developing the discipline of daily practice to preparing for and executing a finished work (“casing the joint,” “committing the act”). The strategies and insights of Creativity: The Perfect Crime will resonate not only with performers of every stripe (actors, musicians, dancers) and practitioners of the non-performing arts (painters, writers, sculptors), but even with ordinary mortals in search of out-of-the-box (or never-even-considered-the-box) approaches to life in general.