A World of Differences

MY first novel, Carnival for the Gods, was published in 1986 in the Vintage Contemporaries Series. It enjoyed a brief flurry of interest before descending into limbo, and I moved on to other things. I had no expectation of returning to that particular world. Now, not quite thirty years later, the book has been reissued by Kiwai Media in Paris as the first of what has become “The Carnival Quintet.” Revisiting these books is an occasion for wonder, if not astonishment, not only for my fascination with circus and carnival in the first place, but for the importance of these things in my creative life over the decades. I had no real exposure to the circus until I had children of my own, and my only experience with carnivals was of the fairgrounds variety, until I attended the Mardi Gras and the carnival in Venice many years later.

My first introduction to the circus came when I was about thirteen, babysitting the boy in the other half of the duplex where we lived—a kid named Gary, who made a problematic combination with his large, blundering mutt Trigger. There I came across Toby Tyler at the Circus, the one item of interest in the apartment. Although Toby, the ten-year-old orphan who runs away to the circus, is cruelly treated by the owner in an atmosphere of tyranny, isolation, and exploitation—nothing romantic there—it must have appealed to some aspect of adolescent escapist longing. But it was not until my late forties that, for whatever reason, I got caught up in the idea of writing about a circus—a traveling circus/carnival perhaps. I felt a strong desire actually to travel with a circus or carnival—it seemed absolutely the right thing to do—but my responsibilities at the time stood in the way. I was whining about this state of affairs to a friend of mine who, after listening to my plaint, said mildly, “Why don’t you invent one?” That hadn’t occurred to me.

My intention was to write a realistic novel about a circus traveling to various cities around the country—Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, etc. But since I knew these cities only superficially, the magnitude of such a task seemed daunting. Though I had been doing a good deal of reading about the circus and attending various performances both here and in Europe, I really had no idea what I wanted to write about. I still find it quite mysterious the way one can enter into a state of complete fascination with something that is virtually unknown, taken in by a numinous image that is absolutely compelling. The discoveries that emerge from that state are part of the mystery of the creative process, and one of its great rewards.

Not long afterward, following a party that left me pleasantly elevated, I lay in bed unable to sleep, visited by a whole set of possibilities. Characters and their situations emerged. I could see a small ragtag circus/carnival broken down in the desert in southern New Mexico after a dust storm. Various members of the troupe begin to pull out—this latest disaster the last straw. Those now left are the faithful followers of Dusty, the owner. Dusty and his long-suffering wife Alta—both former trapeze artists—dream of creating a show greater than The Greatest Show on Earth, a giant celebration at the heart of the city. Those that have stayed have nowhere else to go: Donovan, a giant; Curran, a midget; Billy Bigelow, a magician-cum-handyman and electrician. Into this scene of general disarray Dusty brings Amazing Grace, who dances with snakes, and the Kid, who might be her brother. Grace is the one, Dusty is convinced, who will change their luck.

A month later I had a story of the same title that was to become a first chapter of Carnival for the Gods. I was delighted when it was accepted for publication in the SR. I had the characters and their situations but nothing more concrete. Where were they headed and what would happen along the way...