Love Death Circus is a love letter to the Bay Area circus community that has been the author's artistic home for over four decades. The novel follows Frank Singer, a veteran clown, through a year of death and dying, first a colleague, then his mother, his best friend and a mentor. As exotic as the characters are on-stage, they face the same scary world as everyone else when illness hits their community. Framed by a series of benefit performances, Love Death Circus takes you deep into an idiosyncratic community of artists with an outrageous sense of adventure reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen or Walter Mosley.
Jeff Raz has drawn on his life's work to write a pair of fictional narratives - one following a professional clown performing with Cirque du Soleil and one following a clown student who just wants a job in a circus. It captures the sweat, the sinew and the soul of clowning.
National Book Award Finalist • Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities—with the help of amphetamines, arsenic, and radioisotopes. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious—and dangerous—asset. As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.
"Congratulations Callie, you're the puppet now."What the devil does that mean? I've finally succeeded in doing away with Samuel, but I'm not really in charge of the island at all. In fact the treachery runs deeper than I ever thought possible and if I'm not careful every soul on the island-both living and dead-will want to kill me for what I've done unless I discover who is really in charge. Do I have the ability to overcome myself and do what I need to do or will I have to stand by and watch everyone I love die?
An average, run of the mill office worker, Kei racked up a huge amount of debt trying to help his hostess girlfriend move away from her line of work. When his efforts fell short, he tried to end his own life... but found himself rescued from death by the proprietor of Loved Circus, a brothel for gay men. Facing the hard truth that his girlfriend lied to him, he agrees to stay and join the four employees of the circus to work off his life debt, learning about the clients, his fellow sex workers, and the goings on in Tokyo's less known nightlife.
Kaye's two novels have established him as one of today's most stunning chroniclers of Los Angeles. Of "The Dead Circus, " David Ebershoff wrote in the "Los Angeles Times Book Review, " "The reader is compelled to turn the page . . . Once the novel's momentum takes hold, [its] pursuit becomes ours."
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
A true life Water for Elephants, Queen of the Air brings the circus world to life through the gorgeously written, true story of renowned trapeze artist and circus performer Leitzel, Queen of the Air, the most famous woman in the world at the turn of the 20th century, and her star-crossed love affair with Alfredo Codona, of the famous Flying Codona Brothers. Like today's Beyonce, Madonna, and Cher, she was known to her vast public by just one name, Leitzel. There may have been some regions on earth where her name was not a household expression, but if so, they were likely on polar ice caps or in the darkest, deepest jungles. Leitzel was born into Dickensian circumstances, and became a princess and then a queen. She was not much bigger than a good size fairy, just four-foot-ten and less than 100 pounds. In the first part of the 20th century, she presided over a sawdust fiefdom of never-ending magic. She was the biggest star ever of the biggest circus ever, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth. In her life, Leitzel had many suitors (and three husbands), but only one man ever fully captured her heart. He was the handsome Alfredo Codona, the greatest trapeze flyer that had ever lived, the only one in his time who, night after night, executed the deadliest of all big-top feats, The Triple--three somersaults in midair while traveling at 60 m.p.h. The Triple, the salto mortale, as the Italians called it, took the lives of more daredevils than any other circus stunt.
When young vampire-hunter Kayla Steele is bitten by a werewolf, she thinks it's the end of her world. However, little does she know that the real end of the world is not that far away. Master vampire Harlequin has made a deal with the Devil and is now planning to commit the ultimate sin - killing an angel - which will trigger an ancient curse and bring about war in Heaven. If that happens, it will be the end of mankind forever. Kayla's only hope now lies in a mysterious stranger named Niki, who knows where the angel is being kept. Together, they must rescue the angel before midnight on Sunday in order to stave off Armageddon. But unless Niki is who he claims to be, the stakes just got one hell of a lot higher...
