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 The Aerialistby Richard Schmitt The dark, seemingly glitzy world of an American traveling circus is the setting for Richard Schmitt's brilliant debut novel, The Aerialist. In story-like chapters, Schmitt describes a hapless, magical existence in an American voice as starkly resonant as that of Richard Ford—and through his descriptions, the circus emerges as a symbol of human aspiration. "I found Richard Schmitt in a classroom and mistook him to be disturbed by Vietnam. He turns out to have been disturbed by walking a wire in a circus, which he did not wish to reveal. The delightful revelations are to hand: what it's really like to run away and join the circus." "The best novel of its kind since Edward Hoagland's Cat Man." "Opens actual new territory in the land between narrative and fact, and burns true. A very significant, powerful book from a new writer, whose world has never been seen before this well." |
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