The history of travelling carnivals, or circuses, is complex. The form is steeped in tradition, but the people who live and make their living in modern circuses are a diverse bunch, hailing from everywhere in the world. Often they live a nomadic life, travelling internationally with different circuses each season. There are circus families that go back generations, but there are also circus stars who had no more connection to the circus as children than an annual family visit. That tiny window into this world is sometimes enough; magical enough and tantalising enough to make you dedicate your entire existence to it. Circus can be in the blood in more than one way. It can be craved, and sought, and found. Novelists like myself are rarely nomadic, or dare I say it, particularly acrobatic, except in our minds. That is where we chase our dreams: in reading and writing of lives we are perhaps not brave enough to seek out for ourselves.
‘Circus’ in Ancient Rome referred to a circular arena where chariot racing took place, but most sources agree that the form most modern circuses take, specifically groups of travelling artists under the same Big Top, where clowns entertain, jugglers and acrobats perform and animal tricks are shown, probably began in the eighteenth century. Circus has evolved over time, and these days parts of traditional circus, for example ‘freak’ shows, while no longer deemed acceptable as entertainment still fascinate readers of historical fiction. The concept of circus is therefore multi-layered, slippery, romantic and taboo. It evokes nostalgia, excitement, mystery and magic, but doesn’t lend itself easily to a strict definition. Those shows that have survived to this day are each of them different, from the towering spectacle of the Moscow State circus to the charm, skill and artistry of Gifford’s. The shifting nature of circus is reflected in its presence in the public consciousness. It’s ephemeral, somehow unreal, perhaps an illusion. Unless, that is, you live in one.
Today, running away to the circus may seem like an impossible dream, but it’s one that is still achievable if you know where to look, if you have the vision and talent, if you hear its siren call. Novelists hear it. We are drawn to the darkness, the mystery, the magic and the illusion; the gaps where fiction, and imagination, can allow our minds to soar at an impossible height, to take that leap into the unknown, to a place where anything might be possible.
Something Wicked This Way Comes: Ray Bradbury, 1962
Bradbury’s dark fantasy horror uses the carnival to explore themes of transition to adulthood. This coming-of-age tale is heavy with nostalgia, the terrifying possibilities of the magic carousel representing only a small part of the powers of transformation this dark carnival can wield. Bradbury’s tale itself is transformational, inspiring novelists to this day as a masterclass of the form.
Nights at the Circus: Angela Carter, 1984
Carter incorporates postmodernism, magical realism and feminist themes into this award winning, playful, original and complex novel. The story includes a travelling circus, a girl hatched from an egg who grows wings, a fortune telling pig and a band of outlaws. Its influence on culture is wide-ranging, featuring as it does many expertly-drawn oddities and weaving motifs. This novel is her penultimate, and in the years since its publication has received much attention and analysis due to its many ground-breaking attributes. Carter always merits a re-read. I learn something new every time I pick up one of hers.
Geek Love: Katherine Dunn, 1989
While Geek Love is set in a travelling circus, the freakshow elements are front and centre. Characters are spectacles in themselves, most of them bred for the freakshow, most of them as twisted inside as they are out. There are cults, and strippers, and a character conceived using telekinetic sperm. What more could you wish for? Transporting, entertaining, genious.
Water for Elephants: Sarah Gruen, 2006
Gruen’s circus train is a cruel place, where workers are ‘red-lighted’ for perceived slights by being thrown from a moving train. The protagonist, Jacob (with echoes of his biblical namesake) abandons his life as a veterinary student to board the train, where his skills are put to use with the circus animals. This colourful novel contains forbidden love, high-speed train-car hopping, and an elephant stampede.
The Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern, 2011
Utterly enchanting, dark and magical fantasy novel. In it, the Circus of Dreams exists only in the night, and is powered by real magic. Its sideshows include fortune tellers and acts which defy the laws of gravity and physics, but its function is also to serve as the showground for a fight-to-the-death competition between the proteges of two powerful magicians. I loved this novel and didn’t want it to end.
Joyland, Stephen King, 2013
King’s novel features an amusement park, not a circus, but the nostalgia and magic I look for in a circus novel are present here. Both a murder mystery and a ghost story, Joyland depicts the vividness of carnival life alongside darker and more supernatural themes. The setting here is woven with the plot, the two sitting naturally together with the ephemerality and atmosphere of the funfair, and all that has to offer a writer. Safety in place like this may well be nothing more than an illusion.
Station Eleven: 2014, Emily St John Mandel
Following a deadly pandemic, the Travelling Symphony finds meaning in life through their art and community. I read this almost-perfect novel when it came out, and I still hold that world inside my head. If you are yet to read this book, I envy you.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things: Alice Hoffman, 2014
Set in Coney Island in 1911, the ‘museum’ of the title is another freak show, with Coralie as a mermaid. Despite ourselves, we are endlessly fascinated with freak shows, though as an author I identify more with those defined as ‘freaks’ than those actual freaks who see these characters as anything less than human. Coralie falls in love with another runaway, another depiction of a displaced person, shunned because of what they are rather than who they are. Which is what all the best stories are about, right?
Circus of Wonders: Elizabeth MacNeal, 2021
MacNeal weaves together themes and characters containing sparks of all that has gone before, creating originality while nodding to inspiration. Perhaps a coincidence that Nell shares her name with the late Nell Gifford, an equestrianist who started Gifford’s circus and ran it until her death in 2021. MacNeal’s Nell’s wings are reflected in Carter; forbidden love is here, too, as well as the freakshow we cannot turn away from. Masterful, magical, ingenious novel. I urge you to read it immediately.
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