torsdag, mars 08, 2007

The Circus in Winter av Cathy Day

The Great Porter Cirkus har sin cirkus-söndag, vintern, i en liten stad, Lima, Indiana. Clowner, akrobater, elefanter, The Jungle Goolah Boy, The Lone Star Cowboy, människor som kommer och går genom hundra år.

Poof! Gone.

The Circus in Winter är berättelser från spännande researchat material, värdigt behandlat, genomjobbat, rakt och rikt.
__________________
Cathy Day
The Circus in Winter. 2004. Harcourt, pocket: ISBN 0-15-603202-3

***
Jennie Dixianna could have been as young as eighteen or as old as forty, and depending on the quality of light, she looked anywhere in between. She never revealed her age, and some of the circus people believed she cast spells and swallowed bitter pills to change her age at will. Sometimes, Jennie took a lover-a wagon painter or calliope player-and during the brief time of their affair, Jennie's appearance would soften or harden to accommodate the shape of the man she'd taken. These men walked around the winter quarters in a drunken stupor, hardly eating, stumbling through their duties until she tired of them and banished them from her bed. The circus people grilled these lovers for her secrets. Does she stew up potions? Does she sleep human sleep? What does she eat? But these men never spoke of her, neither fondly nor harshly, and for months afterward, they moped about, shaking their heads, cleansing themselves of her charm.
Utdrag ur The Circus in Winter: Jennie Dixianna or The Secret to the Spin of Death

Omslaget till pocketen. Visst är det Vasamuséet som skymtar bakom tältet?