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Title: Lives of the Circus Animals : A Novel by Christopher Bram ISBN: 0-06-054253-5 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.44 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Word from the Other End of the Spectrum of Critics
Comment: Christopher Bram is simply one of our best writers of fiction today. His previous works have met with well-founded acclaim ("The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes", and "Father of Frankenstein"), but for some reason THE LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS isn't popular with most readers. I'm not at all sure why. This beautifully constructed book has vividly drawn characters, humor, scandal, absurdities, love form all sides of the sexual spectrum, tenderness, warmth, and a Ringmaster's viewpoint of just how untamable 'animals' can be. The plot centers around the misadventures of groups of theater people in New York City - actors, playwrights, critics, and wannabes - and Bram manages to stir the cauldron of these characters with such sensitivity that in the end - the Grand Finale of a birthday party - the whole extravaganza comes to a pitch perfect boiling point. The coda to the book shows very subtle resolution of all the lives. Bram's title comes from a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Circus Animals' Desertion" and at one point out main character, the playwright Caleb refers to it " Where he says he gave his heart to the theater, but he's all burned out and his animals have run off. It's the poem with the lines 'I must lie down where all the ladders start,/In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.'" Bram runs with this terrific quote and has created a novel that, for this reader, is equal to his other fine works. Highly recommended.
Rating: 3
Summary: Tales of the City for Theatre Buffs
Comment: The best way I know how to describe this frothy, light comedy is to say it's "Tales of the City" set in the New York theatre scene. The book runs just a little over the course of a week, with the various characters interconnected, and each chapter moving from one to the next. There's Henry, the older English thespian who's in a smash Broadway play, his love denied assistant Jessie, and her playwright brother Caleb, as well as Caleb's shallow lover Toby. For anyone who has spent time in the Manhattan theatre world or follows it closely, you may find this a fun, campy, nearly melodramatic read. It didn't seem like the same author who had written the fantastic "Dr August" and "Father of Frankenstein" since it has none of the depth of either of those books. However taken separately, it's a breezy read that brims with heart as a valentine to the the New York theatre and it's inhabitants.
Rating: 4
Summary: Pretty Good
Comment: This was a great book. It was definitely a page turner and had a great fast paced story line. It is about a group of Manhattanites during the course of a few days and their lives in and around plays whether on or off Broadway. I liked the book but at the end I felt like I really didn't get to know the character too well. Christopher Bram wrote another wonderful story but I felt that the story was really lacking character development. Besides Caleb and Jessie Doyle you really have no idea of what the characters went through in the past. Like with the youngest character, Toby, the only thing I really know about him is that he is from Wisconsin...that's it. What kind of life did he have in Wisconsin that would make him move to NYC and start to strip? I liked the book a great deal I just thought that it would have been a better book if the author would have fleshed out the characters a little more.
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Title: War Against the Animals: A Novel by Paul Elliott Russell, Paul Russell ISBN: 0312209355 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Concrete Sky by Marshall Moore ISBN: 1560234369 Publisher: Southern Tier Editions Harrington Park Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical "Follies" by Ted Chapin ISBN: 0375413286 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Last Summer by Michael Thomas Ford ISBN: 0758204051 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Fanny: A Fiction (WHITE, EDMUND) by Edmund White ISBN: 0060004843 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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