Publisher's Weekly Review
In the opening pages of this fascinating memoir, first-time author Fontaine learns how to eat fire. This is just one of several "death-defying" feats she learned during her stint with the World of Wonders, "the very last traveling sideshow of its kind." Intrigued by illusion and danger, Fontaine-a grad student studying writing-accepted a surprising invitation to join the show. Not only did she yearn for adventure but she also hoped to temporarily escape from assisting her mother after her mother suffered a debilitating stroke. Fontaine segues between hospital visits to her mother in California's Bay Area and the fantastical world of the carnival, where Fontaine learned to handle snakes, swallow swords, free herself from handcuffs, and eventually master the role of "the electric woman," lighting light bulbs with her tongue. Traveling state and county fairs, Fontaine shares the unusual stories of her fellow carnival workers, all of whom come across as devoted to the exhausting, grueling, yet inspiring work they do each day. Fontaine explores the history of the carnival (e.g., the first incubators were on display in a carnival sideshow in the early 20th century); its pecking order of performers, carnies, and foodies; its humor and dark underbelly. This remarkable, beautifully written memoir explores the depth of mother-daughter love and the courageous acts of overcoming fear and accepting change. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Fontaine's trip to Gibsonton, Florida, became much more than a casual glimpse into the lives of the sideshow performers who reside there. Her conversation with Chris Christ of the World of Wonders (the last traveling sideshow in the U.S.) led to an invitation to join it for the summer season as a performer. Fontaine, 29, quickly agreed and, with no experience to speak of, found herself their new bally girl, meaning that she would perform magic, charm snakes, eat fire, and escape handcuffs to entice crowds to the real show. While the sideshow narrative progresses linearly, another thread devoted to her mother's debilitating stroke two-and-a-half years earlier does not. The reflections on the latter bounce in time, integrating recollections of Fontaine's youth, the stroke itself, and its nightmarish aftermath. They are intercut with Fontaine's experiences on the road, sometimes acting as parallels or counterpoints, sometimes as simple insights into the life she was briefly escaping. Fascinating and heartfelt, Fontaine's memoir brushes with death but, more important, finds life and light in unexpected places, giving value to otherness in an unpredictable world.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AMITY AND PROSPERITY: One Family and the Fracturing of America, by Eliza Griswold. (Picador, $18.) This exhaustively researched account traces the devastating effects of fracking on a Pennsylvania town: illnesses, toxic waste, a collapsing middle class. The book, which won a Pulitzer Prize this year, captures the layers of government malfeasance and neglect that allowed a corporation's interests to win out in the region. THE GREAT BELIEVERS, by Rebecca Makkai. (Penguin, $16.) Makkai's powerful novel chronicles the AIDS epidemic, from its outbreak up to the present day, through the lives of a group of friends in Chicago, most of them gay men. Along the way, the story of a woman searching for her daughter in Paris in 2015 is woven in. The book was one of the Book Review's 10 best of 2018. FRENEMIES: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else), by Ken Auletta. (Penguin, $17.) The media reporter and best-selling author describes the new landscape for advertising and marketing, both competing with and dependent on Silicon Valley. Though America's fascination with advertising has dimmed, Auletta does point to successful innovations, even as the industry stares down existential threats. OHIO, by Stephen Markley. (Simon & Schuster, $16.99.) In this timely debut novel, which touches on everything from the Iraq war to opiate addiction to the alt-right, a group of former classmates return to their Rust Belt hometown, where an astonishing number of secrets and betrayals are revealed. As our reviewer, Dan Chaon, put it, "The real core of this earnestly ambitious debut lies not in its sweeping statements but in its smaller moments, in its respectful and bighearted renderings of damaged and thwarted lives." THE ELECTRIC WOMAN: A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts, by Tessa Fontaine. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.) After her mother suffered a terrible stroke, leaving her severely incapacitated, the author ran off to join the circus, where she ate fire, handled a boa constrictor and even swallowed swords. Fontaine braids these experiences, of losing her mother and performing in a sideshow, into an elegant narrative. THE MARS ROOM, by Rachel Kushner. (Scribner, $17.) Set in a women's correctional facility, this propulsive novel reveals an imagination that is Dickensian in its range and its reformist zeal. As our reviewer, Charles McGrath, wrote, "Kushner's novel is so powerful and realistic you come away convinced that... even for those who get out, prison is still a life sentence."
Kirkus Review
A writer performs in a traveling sideshow tour after spending three years with her mother as she endured a series of debilitating strokes.In her debut memoir, Fontaine explores the power of the mother-daughter bond and the resiliency and marvel of the human body under duress. In October 2010, the author's mother suffered the first of several strokes. She was left severely incapacitated and in the care of her husband, Fontaine's stepfather. Yet in the summer of 2013, at great risk to her health, they set off together for an ambitious trip to Italy, refusing to give in to her physical limitations. On a whim, the author set off on her own adventure, signing on as a carnival performer in America's last traveling sideshow, the World of Wonders. For the next 150 days, she tested her physical endurance and deeply ingrained fears, acquiring skills as a fire eater, snake charmer, and escape artist, among other sideshow feats, and investigating the unique culture and often grueling realities of carnival life. Fontaine is a graceful writer, and her story initially shows great promise as she seamlessly weaves together a chronicle of her often bizarre carnival experiences with poignant memories of her mother before and after her illness. But as the narrative segues into a lengthy day-to-day account of her experiences on the tour, it becomes less urgently involved with her connection to her mother and reads more like a journalistic reporting exercise. Though the author is careful to recount her dedicated immersion within this world, there's an emotional detachment that grows more evident in her encounters with the individuals who inhabit this space. After several weeks on the tour, as the wonders begin to grow thin and somewhat repetitive, the story loses momentum. Though her tale eventually leads to a moving and satisfying conclusion, the journey is unnecessarily arduous.A sometimes-engrossing but overlong memoir about carnival life and family bonds. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In this memoir, Fontaine recounts one season working on a traveling sideshow, the World of Wonders. Starting as a bally girl, she works her way up from learning simple acts such as holding a boa constrictor and escaping from handcuffs to eating fire and shocking herself with electricity. Interspersed with the sideshow stories are Fontaine's struggles to care for her mother after a stroke and memories of her childhood. Unfortunately, the book struggles with a lack of action and is weighted down with gross-out episodes and repetitive, dull details of sideshow life, such as setting up and breaking down the tent every time the show moves to a new fair. Verdict Fontaine does not make much of a case for any larger meaning in her experiences, and considering that she doesn't seem to enjoy working as a sideshow performer, it's unclear why she chose to do it.-Kate Stewart, Arizona Historical Soc., Tucson © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
