Synopses & Reviews
From an authentic American voice, a stunning, gritty tale of a young man's retreat into the darkly glamorous world of the circus.
Venice, Florida: On the edge of town sits the winter headquarters of a
traveling circus. One day Gary, a drifter, signs up for a job as a bullhand
with the circus.
Everyone has heard of the ringmaster, the trapeze artist, and the clown, but Gary soon learns that the circus includes others as well: the 24-hour man, the first to arrive in a town to poster the way to the circus grounds; the bullhands who remove elephant excrement from under the animals' bodies; the butchers who distract the audience from the circus spectacle selling them cotton candy or lemonade; the animal people who care for the animals and keep to themselves. Gary instantly falls in love with this new life, riding the circus train from one town to the next in the odd hours of the night.
This acclaimed debut tells of a hapless, magical existence-a life for which Richard Schmitt's characters have abandoned everything and nothing at all. In it, the circus unfolds as a wealth of human energy and ambition, and Schmitt emerges as a talent with a magical voice and a high-flying future.
Review
PRAISE FOR THE AERIALIST
Wonderful . . . The Aerialist manages, with the savvy originality of legendary old showfolk, to 'put an entire world inside a tent.' "-The Baltimore Sun
Cleverly turning the road-worn carny metaphor on its ear, Schmitt trains a follow spot on the perilous balancing act that is American ambition. Dazzling."-Entertainment Weekly
Reads more like a Kerouacian travelogue than a traditional work of fiction . . . thematically rich and open to sophisticated interpretations."-The Denver Post
About the Author
Richard Schmitt's stories have appeared in the Mississippi Review, the Marlboro Review, Flyway, Puerto del Sol, Flying Horse Magazine, and New Stories from the South: Year's Best 1999. He has worked as a horse trainer, shrimp fisherman, highwire walker, general circus hand, and English teacher. He lives on a horse farm in central Florida with his wife, Valerie, and daughter, Chelsea.