The Circus in Winter

Thursday, January 29, 2015



The Circus in Winter 
by Cathy Day 
★★★★ 

I love reading books set in my home state, Indiana, but they are few and far between. So I was excited to discover this book, the story of a circus whose home base was in Indiana. The whole book is about the circus, but each chapter features a different star, a different player in the overall company of characters. It begins with the tale of the circus’ owner in 1884 and then winds through the decades. 

I’ve seen it compared to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and that description is spot on. Both books breakdown small-town life and the dark secrets that lie in everyone's past. There are sweet moments, but overall it's about the heartbreak inherent in the human condition. 

Day draws each character beautifully and you're invested in their story from the first pages. Each person is fragile despite their sometimes tough exteriors. Wallace Porter is a resident of Lima, Ind. and buys the circus from a man named Hollenbach. Porter’s own story is so tragic that it sets the tone for the rest of the book. 

There’s Jennie Dixianna, who was raised in the Alabama bayou and now performs the “spin of death,” wearing her perpetually bloody wrist as a proud talisman of her both talent and stubbornness. Then we meet the Boela tribe, which includes generations of members. It starts with Bascomb and Pearly, but continues with their son Gordon, his daughter Verna, and her son Chicky who is a dwarf. Even characters that aren’t human, like Caesar the elephant, find a way to pull you in. 

There are stories set within the circus and others that feature the lives affected by it. There’s the lonely wife of its manager who fills her home with murals of the circus. One family moves to Peru years after the circus has closed, but vestiges of its glamour still seep into their lives. The circus also barely survived a huge flood in 1913, which wiped out many of its performers and animals. 

I loved how all the stories are tied together. The son of the elephant keeper lived in the Colonel’s house, later his daughter Laura is featured in her own story. Because the time period in which many of the stories take place, there is an inevitable tone of racism. The way African-Americans are treated throughout the book breaks your heart. They could be a featured act in the circus just by being black. That made them a wild curiosity that might have come from the “jungle.” 

The author grew up in Peru, Ind. which was the home of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. It wintered there and many of her family members were involved in it. I was curious how much of the book was inspired or based on true story she might have heard growing up. 


BOTTOM LINE: Hauntingly beautiful stories about loneliness in so many different forms. The circus may be the stage for these particular stories, but their resonance and relatability reaches across the years. 

"The world is made up of hometowns. It's just as hard to leave a block in Brooklyn or a suburb of Chicago as it is to leave a small town in Indiana."

“This is why they call it the heartland. In the summer, the fields on either side of Mrs. Colonel’s house glowed a brilliant green, rippling in the wind. The air stretched above like miles of blue canvas, and Mrs. Colonel pictured a center pole rising up from Indianapolis’s Monument Circle to hold up the endless sky.”

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see this one as your endorsement as i have it on my schedule to read this year too. Thanks for your review!

Day had a great, humorous story in the recent Indy Writes Books anthology too.

Anonymous said...

*has your endorsement :-)

Meg @ write meg! said...

Love the quotes you pulled! I don't believe I've ever read a story set in Indiana -- might be time to change that.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

bibliophilica - I can't wait to read Indy Writes Books! That's just one more reason to look forward to it.

Meg - There aren't too many. The Fault is Our Stars is the most famous one.

Anonymous said...

It IS fun to read books where you can identify with the setting. Glad you enjoyed this. Looks like you are having a wonderful reading year.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Bkclubcare - It has been such a great reading year so far! I hope I don't jinx it by saying that : )

Belle Wong said...

One of the few "required reading" books I enjoyed in university was Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. The Circus in Winter sounds intriguing.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Belle - It's been years since I read Winesburg, Ohio, but I remember loving it so much.

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

This is one of those novels that I've been meaning to read; glad u enjoyed it.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Diane - I hadn't heard of it until recently. My alma mater turned the book into a musical and so that put it on my radar. I'd love to be able to see it on the stage.
http://cms.bsu.edu/academics/undergraduatestudy/beyondtheclassroom/immersivelearning/featuredprojects/circus-in-winter