We Are All His Creatures: Tales of P. T. Barnum, the Greatest Showman by Deborah Noyes (review)

Books about P. T. Barnum generally try to determine whether he was a showman or a huckster, a champion or exploiter of the human oddities he employed. In these eleven cumulative fictional short stories, however, Noyes focuses instead on those within the gravitational pull of his American Museum, and how the force that was Barnum affected the trajectory of their lives. She opens with his young daughters, Caroline and Helen, who sneak in to see the Fejee Mermaid, only to find that the monstrosity is less an excitement than a sad reminder of their sagging mother, who seems to live only to nurse. The Barnum family dysfunction will appear in later stories, but the tone shifts under Charles Stratton’s point of view, as he embraces the opportunity to be a successful showman himself, albeit as a little person under the name of General Tom Thumb. Barnum’s beleaguered first wife, Charity, recounts on a trip back from Europe how her husband had once abandoned her at Niagara Falls. Robert Lincoln simmers over a White House reception for newly married Tom Thumb and wife, coming far too soon after his brother’s death, but ends up questioning whether his father’s graciousness isn’t a better trait than his own resentment. Giantess Anna Swan and a museum fire; Jack, son of a bearded lady, who will become a Barnum artist; youngest Barnum daughter Pauline and her flirtation with spirit photography; Barnum’s second wife, younger than her stepchildren, are all facets of the Barnum story, based on fact but elevated to exquisite explorations of what might have been. Noyes indulges in her own touch of flim-flammery, subtly suggesting that the ghostly finger of Frances, the incorrigible daughter who died young, might have been behind the many fires that afflicted the Barnum homes and businesses. Who’s to say? A brief author note and period photos for each chapter are included.