More Circus Fiction

Summer Reading recommendations.

Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants
Amazon Link

Water for Elephants is a story of a Depression era mudshow that Jacob Jankowki, a down on his luck veterinary student, joins. The fictional circus Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth shows the seamy underbelly of that era of circus. The novel is a little bit on the "typical circus fiction" side, but the writing is great, and if you like the circus, you'll probably like this.

Patti Frazee's Cirkus
Amazon Link

This is also a fictional story of an old mud show, focusing more on freaks such as Mariana , the fortune teller who can turn herself invisible, Shanghai a fire-breathing dwarf, and conjoined twins Atasha and Anna. This time the circus is set in the American midwest at the turn of the century, and the circus is the Borefsky Brothers. It's a debut novel by Patti Frazee, who lives in Minneapolis. It's been getting great reviews.

John Irvings's A Son of the Circus
Amazon Link
A book about an Indian circus, with all of John Irving's weird characters (He wrote The World According to Garp). It's about an Indian born doctor who goes back to India to study circus-dwarves. It's got a lot of exposition, as Irving's books do, but there's gold there-- especially if you like Irving and the circus. Which I do. Not as much about India as you would like though.

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Search out books on Amazon that are about clowns

Circus Music on Itunes

A friend of mine (Peter Bufano) has a Circus Band called Cirkestra. They are really fantastic-- if you are looking for some great circus music, Cirkestra is a good bet.

Find out more about Cirkestra at their website.

CLICK THE ALBUM COVER TO SEE/LISTEN TO THE ALBUM ON ITUNES:

Red Hook Waterfront Festival Performance June 2

The Theatre Museum & the Waterfront Museum will present
SHOWBOAT 'ROUND THE BEND
A unique exhibition extolling the glory of the American showboat

The exhibition which will run through December will have a grand opening on Saturday, June 2, 2007 from noon to 6 pm on board the Showboat Barge (at the foot of Conover Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn) The opening is in conjunction with the Red Hook Waterfront Festival.

Artists of exceptional ability will perform at the opening (entitled AHOY THERE!)
Performances include acrobatic fleas, a yodeling ukelele, butoh dance, and a whole lot more (See the performance schedule below)

Admission: Donations requested

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Hosted by vaudeville scholar and performer Trav S.D. with Officer Crabtree

12:00 noon Moira Stone sings selections from "Show Boat"
(accompanied by Whitney Gardner)
12:30 Steve the Whistler America's premier whistling entertainer
1:00 Acme Miniature Flea Circus
1:30 Sorcha Dorcha Celtic folk music ensemble
2:00 Uke Jackson (ukulele player, singer)
2:30 Nellie Tinder (country operetta)
2:45 Kate Magram (acrobalance)
3:00 Mr. Patrick (story teller)
3:30 Kathrine Adamenko (butoh dancer)
4:00 Scottie Davis of the Salt and Pepper Mime Company (mime and song)
4:30 Maestrocities (clown band)

Questions? Visit:
http://www.waterfrontmuseum.org
or http://www.ttmnyc.org
FULL PRESS RELEASE & DIRECTIONS

Circus Fiction

I was recently asked about Circus Fiction, so I thought I'd give a couple of recommendations. These should get you started.

Amanda Davis's Wonder When You'll Miss Me
Amazon Link
Amanda toured with the Bindlestiff's when I toured with them (in 1998)
She wrote this novel (her first, and sadly her last) after that. It's about a young troubled girl who runs away to join the circus.

Amanda was killed in a tragic plane crash along with her parents on the way to a book signing in North Carolina in 2003.
She was an up and coming young writer, and showed amazing promise. It's a real tragedy.


Katherine Dunn's Geek Love
Amazon Link
Great and classic book about a touring sideshow of self-made freaks and the religion/cult that develops about one of the performers. This is a book that consistently gets very high praise, and is consistently on the list of "Best Books About the Sideshow." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.






Angela Carter's Nights At the Circus
Amazon Link
A book about turn of the century London turns into an epic love story between a cockney trapeze artist who may or may not have wings and the hotshot journalist that is set to debunk her as they tour the frozen steppes of Siberia. I was in a recent stage production of this, and the story and novel twist of this is astonishing and beautiful. It's a slightly long read and very narrative, but oh so worth it.

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Search out More Books on Amazon that are circus fiction
Search out books on Amazon that are about clowns

Scary Clowns

This is a small fun book of over 80 photographs of clowns in a slightly scary or macabre mode. Not all of them are scary, but enough to give those with coulrophobia (fear of clowns) a moment of pause. A fair amount of the photos are classic, but there's also a bunch of other photos that I hadn't seen before. It's definitely a great gift for the clown or clown collector among you. The center of the book has a very cool 3D pop up (pictured). I can recommend this book!




For a couple of scarier options, you might want to visit The Gallery of Scary Clowns A compilation of photographs of scary clowns (most seem to be from Cirque du Soleil.)