Customer Reviews

A Cabinet of Wonders

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A Cabinet of Wonders is imaginative, often very funny, and full of feeling. It gives a striking look at the horror of losses -- of dignity, self-image, livelihood, purpose, love -- and the joy/grace of self-expression, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and, again at the center of it all, love. I was in awe of the imagination that could bring such complex, unusual characters to life in such a sympathetic way. Intriguing story, unforgettable images, and a moving, sometimes shocking, but quite uplifting experience to read.

Ms Dodd's debut novel was a pleasant surprise. "A Cabinet" conveys the colorful inner world of carnival life with remarkable warmth, humour and empathy. Dodd shows great constraint by avoiding the obvious "cliches", and instead delivers a beautifully written story of unrequited love, alienation, lust, friendship, and acceptance. I would recommend this to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, or wondered how it felt to be the outsider. I guess that pretty much includes everyone...

It's 1927 and the good times are rolling. That is unless your livelihood depends on the take at the gate. Americans are abandoning the carnivals and freak shows for the latest and greatest thing: the talkie. The freak show at the Starlight Carnival Royale's has been renamed Dugan's Cabinet of Wonders to appeal to a public more interested in the flickering of the moving picture show than what's standing before them. Rubes are still paying their nickels and dimes to see the Siamese twins, the tattooed man, the Wolf Girl, the Marvelous Morphodite, and Dugan himself, the dwarf, but money is getting tighter and tighter and the venues smaller and smaller as the carnival is about to roll into the history books.

Renee Dodd's poignant and colorful debut novel, A Cabinet of Wonders, takes readers behind the canvas to reveal the wonders of the freak Show, the Starlight's most lucrative dimension.

The main protagonist is the dwarf, Dugan, whose role is more than a businessman, scholar, and main attraction. He is also the man who keeps the show together, acting as father, lover, and confident to his merry little band of outcasts who make up the Freak Show, and indeed, his family.

Dodd's focus, which is solely on the characters in the freak show, illustrates that no matter how different our physical shells are, everyone, freak and non-freak, is pretty much the same on the inside. Her exclusive lens on this one aspect of carnival life is revealing in the way the characters make and break alliances, love, and grow in spirit, mind, and flesh. For example, the 16th birthday party for the Siamese twins, Molly and Faye, reveals the girls, joined at the hip, fascination with boys and beads, and illustrates the fine line between where the girl ends and the woman begins.

A Cabinet of Wonders is perfect example of historical fiction. The details, including a mention of The Great Gatsby, place readers into that world and uses language and description that catapults reader into this time period of American history.

Armchair Interviews says: Interesting look into the lives of those who inhabit carnivals.



From Our Armchair to Yours ...

I read this book on the heels of Water for Elephants. Both were fascinating and difficult to put down. Renee Dodd is a brilliantly expressive writer whose unusual characters become absolutely real as each page is turned.

With "A Cabinet of Wonders," Renee Dodd delivers what is, at heart, a classic tale about the struggle to hold a family together, despite insurmountable forces.

If you're like the rubes of the 1920's and 30's who gawked at the performers in traveling freak shows in order to satisfy some dark and morbid curiosity, then this may not be the book for you.

Dodd's narrative doesn't play to shock and revulsion; instead, the author chooses to draw the reader in with honest and open characters, and she does so in a way that evokes empathy and even a degree of understanding about how such considerable physical deformities are sometimes considered a blessing for those who bear them.

In essence, Dodd's characters reveal the truth--albeit uncomfortable for some--about so-called "freaks;" Other than their obvious physical traits, they're just like the rest of us.

Having a fascination with 'freak shows' of the past, I was immediately drawn to Renee Dodd's A Cabinet of Wonders. I was drawn in from the very beginning and the story kept my interest through to the very end. I would read for hours at a stretch because I was so involved with the story and the characters. Dodd creates a vibrant, and fairly accurate, picture of the a traveling circus. The characters are beautifully written and are fully developed as people, not just freaks.

The opening, written in an engaging second person, drew me in just as if I were at a fair being pulled into a tent for a nickel. It gave me a quick snapshot overview of the characters in the novel. The novel manages to allow each character to develop as an individual while still retaining the feel of 'the family' they have created. The character's interactions with one another leads to immediate understanding of their relationships.

The most powerful aspect of the novel is the characters themselves, they keep the story interesting. The story and plot of the novel itself is weak, there is no driving quest that keeps the story moving, it is entirely based on the character's growth and development. The beginning through the middle is strong and the actions believable, however, I found the ending too great an effort to tie up all the loose ends, and force an end.

All in all though, I greatly enjoyed this novel and have now read it three times, always finding something new and more exciting. Renee Dodd has certainly become one of my favorite authors and I will be on the look out for more work by her.

While the premise of Renee Dodd's book is ambitious--write a novel about the performs in a sideshow, focusing on a single character in each chapter--the result is less than impressive. Dodd's characters blend into one another, each reacting in the same way to the same set of circumstances. I never really heard the "voice" of any of these characters; instead, I heard Dodd stressing over and over that these people are unique, and yet at the same time robbing them of thier individuality. For example, the descriptions and emotions described in a chapter about the twins could easily be cut and plopped down in a chapter about the "Wolf Girl." Dodd also tries too hard to write beautiful, sophisticated prose. She is obviously a talented writer, but some of her descriptions were cringe-worthy or too bogged down with themselves. While a sweet and intelligent novel that wants to highlight the humanity in these people, Cabinet of Wonders strips them of their voices, their faults, and their indiviuality, leaving them two-dimensional players in a quick and forgettable read.

If you were blown away by Katherine Dunn's GEEK LOVE and have been looking for something else like it, keep looking or just read GEEK LOVE again! That magnificent book starts with quote and promise "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." and quickly introduces an operatic cast of grotesques who build to mythic levels of monstrosity which can barely be contained. This book on the other hand is about some fairly nice, differently abled peole whose main claim to fame is that they live on the road. Although each has his/her own physical deformity and single defining personality item to match the overwhelming characteristic of each freak is that it is nice person, very, VERY NICE. So nice, that I could barely tell them apart and would end up skimming back and forth several pages to see if that was the wolf girl or the fat lady or what. Remember the SIMPSONS episode where Marge gets all the splatter taken out of Itchy and Scratchy's show and they stand dumbstruck by the idea of being nice, tongues hanging out in confusion? That's how this book made me feel. That's not why I read books about freaks! Like Bart and Lisa, I went out to look at the sunset. I left this book behind in the hotel when I checked out.
I should say that like all books from TOBY PRESS, the cover and production is excellent. Unfortunately, despite much research on the part of the first time author, the story never comes across and anachronisms stand out like sore thumbs. Historically incorrect slang, however, is less damaging to the story than the forced empathies of pretended political correctness-circa 1990s- which robs this book of any impact whatsoever. This book was a major disappointment!