Amazon.com Review
Richard Schmitt's first novel,
The Aerialist, chronicles the transformation of a disenfranchised '70s youth into a human miracle, a model of discipline, a machine capable of astonishing feats of balance and strength on a circus tightrope, a high-wire walker, a death-defying artist. In the beginning, a couple of pothead New England émigrés trying to operate an auto-detailing business in Venice, Florida, get mixed up with a blood-soaked Buick Riviera. While joy riding, Gary and Dave spin out and get stuck in the sandy shoulder of a road near the winter quarters of a circus troupe. It's an elephant they need to pull them out, but their trip for help is more like a descent into the rabbit hole, into a fantastic and seductive alternative reality--and there's no coming back.
These are not the Wallendas, kids from a circus family brought up in the trade, they're outsiders looking for somewhere to belong. Gary floats into a position as a bull handler, managing elephants with a barbed stick. Then he becomes a butcher, a hawker of cheap treats and souvenirs, before moving into wardrobe. He's riding the train, part of the circus, one of the workingmen, but it's the performers who mesmerize him--the ultra-fit, super-focused stars who use every spare moment for practice. Dave, his hapless sidekick, is along for the ride more than anything else; fighting cancer, he lives like there is no tomorrow.
First-person narration by Gary alternate with vignettes told in other voices, a technique that produces a satisfying kaleidoscopic weave of perspective. The Aerialist is rich in behind-the-scenes circus lore and peopled with a large cast of unusual folk, but its greatest satisfaction lies in its informed literary authority. The subject is sensational, the writing accomplished. In Zurich, a journalist watches Gary practice:
The wire over his head is low enough to jump to. He buckles leather handgrips around the wrists like you've seen gymnasts do on TV. Thin strips of rawhide to protect the palms. Two inches by six inches with holes for the middle and ring fingers and straps to pull the leather tight across the palm. Under the leather straps terrycloth wristbands keep the sweat from his hands. He wears white kneesocks and shorts over a pair of black tights. On his feet are white leather pull-ons similar to ballet shoes; he has them stuck inside an oversized pair of clogs. Clinging to the top half of his body, more decoration than shirt, a white tanktop. He stands under the wire and flexes his shoulders, rotates his head, arches his back, bends over and places his palms flat on the ground in front of him. There is the sound of breathing and the cracking and popping of joints over the sound of the water lapping at the black roots of willows.
More about growing up and individuality than about extraordinary life choices, this is an intelligent and cerebral evocation of a very unusual journey and a most impressive debut.
--Victoria Jenkins
From Publishers Weekly
A high-wire act in more ways than one, this exhilarating novel by first-timer Schmitt tells the story of a restless young drifter who joins the circus and falls under its tarnished spell. Starting out as an elephant wrangler at the circus's Florida winter quarters, Gary Ruden drifts into other jobs: "butcher" (concessionaire), trainman ("water in... crap out"), wardrobe boy. Like some of the other hands, he is attracted to the idea of becoming a performer. Eventually he begins to practice seriously on a makeshift high wire. Gary's first-person narrative meanders like a circus train, with stops for various sideshows: excerpts from a diary written by a woman who cooks for the performers, the point of view of a circus midget, and even a glimpse into the mind of Gary's dog. As observed from all these perspectives, the world of the circus is brutal, often obscene and yet strangely romantic. Gary himself flexes several different voices: his initial flat, down-and-out, tough-guy tone; a comic deadpan; and even a lyrical one, at first a whisper. That voice becomes increasingly dominant as it gradually becomes clear that on his circus sojourn Gary is developing not just a craft but an identity. Grittily authentic in its details (Rick Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas is cited in the acknowledgments), Schmitt's debut is a beautifully polished tale. Published under the auspices of the Sewanee Writers' Series, it has all the hallmarks of a potential word-of-mouth success. If it catches on, it should go a long way toward launching Schmitt into the circle of other blue-collar champions with velvet touches, like Anne Tyler and Russell Banks. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
