Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Written toward the end of Keeler's life and writing career, this entry in a series about a small circus touring the Midwest has never been published in any form until now. As usual, Keeler tosses off a pretty large number of fantastically original and fantastically preposterous ideas. Also as usual, the novel is assembled from a number of disconnected units. A local sheriff reads over a letter he has written. The circus owner discovers a new, horrific financial crisis (a feature of every one of the circus novels). A criminal discusses with an underling his unsuccessful efforts to steal a pulp magazine in possession of the circus owner. Two waifs tell their (amazing) stories to the circus owner. The leader of a Chinese tong discusses the efforts to get the pulp with an associate. And there's an extended interview between the circus owner and six mysterious and seedy old men who want to pay $5,000 for the pulp. The end.
Why do three different groups want this particular copy of a large-circulation detective story pulp, which it is clearly established has nothing hidden within it, and which carries no codes or secret writing anywhere? The explanation is vintage Keeler, so preposterously convoluted as to very likely stagger many a gentle reader, should such a reader ever happen upon it... a very unlikely event.
There's an introduction which summarizes briefly the contents and highly confusing publication history of Keeler's other circus novels.
This is pretty thin gruel compared to the more typical 400 to 600-page Keeler novels produced (and sometimes published) during his heyday, but in sheer weirdness and in crazed inventiveness, it is right up to the Keeler mark. If you like Keeler, you'll like it.
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