Introduction

Circus Home- A Novel of Life, Love and New Jersey is one of the most admired novels of 2023.

JUST ANNOUNCED- WINNER 2023 eLit GOLD MEDAL for Literary Fiction! WINNER- 2023 BookFest Book Award for Historical Fiction!

NOMINATED FOR THE Pacific Book Awards in Historical Fiction!
NOMINATED FOR THE 2023 International Book Award for Literary Fiction!
NOMINATED FOR THE 2023 North Street Book Prize for Genre Fiction!

Circus Home - A Novel of Life, Love and New Jersey

Brendan Hardy was a carnival barker. A tummler. A hawker. He spent a long career on the midway, luring people into the lascivious pleasures of the sideshow tent. As he enters old age, his daughter convinces him to move to an assisted living facility. Brendan chooses to live out his final years with his kind of people—in the New Jersey Home for Retired Circus and Carnival Performers. One day he gets an idea. He puts a sign over the coffee maker in the clubroom, asking to collect the detailed life stories of the other residents of the Home. This captivating and magical novel presents those stories—plus his own—as only Brendan can tell them.

The sweeping novel springs to life in New Jersey, of course, along with settings as diverse as 1880s Brooklyn, 1920s Mississippi, 1940s Detroit, 1950s New York City, a west-bound wagon train, exotic Havana, pre-revolution Kiev, and Washington DC on the eve of The Great War. It mixes historical events with brilliantly observed characters, both fictional and real. Brendan’s storytelling ranges from laugh-out-loud funny to magically fantastic to heartbreaking. And it all leads to an unexpected, punch-in-the-throat ending.

This hard-to-put-down novel brims with lively, intriguing characters you will enjoy getting close to. They are good people. Yet, they base their lives in illusion to survive, holding secrets close to their chest until forced into action. Each action presents a turn— often a sharp one— in their life story. Their lies, fictions, half-truths, and flights of fancy have consequences large and small. The novel asks readers to consider the role of make-believe, illusion, and deception in their lives. If your life is grounded in illusion— who are you? When you play a character, where do you end and the character begins? If you tell a lie to change your life for the better— is that wrong?

If you enjoyed the rousing pace of Gower's The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, the spirited characters in Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the literary sweep of Doctorow’s Ragtime, the antic world of Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, it's time you come home to the circus, too.

Pick up Circus Home today!

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Excerpt

PROLOGUE
The Barker
Brendan Hardy
NOW

We call it pretend, yet there is no pretense about it. Those of us who make a living with rouged cheeks, enveloped by canvas, draped in velvet, lit by Surprise-Pink-gelled Fresnels— working the carnival, the circus, the stage, magic — are the most genuine people on earth. So, when the daughter decided I needed assisted living, naturally my choice was to live with guys who can juggle. On the way to my final curtain I wanted to be alongside people who know how to walk a tightrope. Tame a lion. Balance a dog on their nose. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

What is unique about the narrator in this novel and how does his voice impact the reader's experience?

What role does fantasy play in this novel?

What common threads unite the stories of the residents of the home and how do these common threads impact the characters?

What do you think of the moral dilemmas the characters face and the actions they take as a result?

When is it okay to lie in the book and when is it okay to lie in real life?

Is it okay to change who you are in order to make your life better?

When your work is playing a character, where does the character stop and the real you start and what are the advantages and challenges of playing a character?

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