This inventive book has at its core a collection of linked short stories depicting the lives of sideshow oddities in an early twentieth-century carnival traveling through the rural south. While the fiction opens a door to another world, ultimately it invites readers to think differently about the world we inhabit and the universal need to belong, to experience redemption, to reclaim our imperfections as part of what makes us whole. An introductory essay frames the collection, inviting readers to consider more deeply how the socio-historical context and characters create metaphors for our own experience. The book concludes with a series of creative prompts to engage readers with the text so that the stories continue to unfold.
