32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Impossible to Put Down, July 7, 2002
Let me say at the onset that THE CATCH TRAP has a number of flaws. It is unevenly written; the storyline is somewhat repetitive; the characters are sometimes poorly motivated; the relationship between central characters Mario Santelli and Tommy Zane betrays a certain innocence on the part of the author. But for all its flaws and failings, THE CATCH TRAP is simply one of the most compulsively readable novels I have ever encountered.
The thing that makes the novel so impossible to put down is that everything about it is vividly, vividly alive. Set in the world of the circus of the 1940s and 1950s, the novel tells the story of teenager Tommy Zane, the son of a lion tamer, who dreams of becoming a trapeze artist--and who is taken under the wing of a famous family, The Flying Santellis. Bradley not only gives the novel tremedous sweep, she is so meticulous in her portrayal of circus life that you can smell the popcorn and feel the sawdust; the environment lives and breathes around the characters in a most remarkable way.
But no novel survives on atmosphere alone. Bradley's story is equally unexpected: the star flyer, Mario Santelli, is homosexual--and he and teenage Tommy embark on a passionate love affair. But not only is Tommy underage, this is the 1940s and 1950s; the secrecy their relationship requires proves devastating to both, driving them into a downward spiral of guilt and despair even as they risk their lives on the trapeze with every performance. And around the two swirl a myriad of colorful characters as brilliant as a storm of confetti: the tempetuous Santelli family itself, the movers and shakers of their profession, the contrasting high flyers and lowlifes they encounter as they move from carny midway to center ring, from stardom to disaster.
One of the most surprising things about the novel is how romantically Bradley presents the relationship between Mario and Tommy and--for all her rather elementary assumptions about gay men and their relationships--how effective her approach is. You believe in them, you believe in the world in which they move, and page after page you want to know what happens next. This is not a book to place on your nightstand... because you'll never get to sleep. Surprisingly powerful, amazingly memorable, and very strongly recommended.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love, In Any Form, Is a Beautiful Word, August 28, 2003
This review is from: The Catch Trap (Hardcover)
Those who are familiar with Bradley's Darkover works know that she has tackled the theme of homosexuality before, but those works are set in a future, almost alien environment. This book's setting is one that almost everyone has had at least some contact with, that of the circus and the high-flying trapeze act.
The period is the forties and fifties, a time when such relationships were never, ever talked about, criminalized in most states, and ruined many careers and lives if they became public knowledge. To this setting Bradley brings a remarkably apt pen, one that shows the circus in such detail that you can literally hear the elephants trumpet, the lions roar, the drum roll before the death-defying flight of the trapeze artist. The book follows the happening of the Flying Santellis, a family that has given their all to the perfection of the trapeze act since the 1890s. The Santellis are a close-knit family, held together by tradition, discipline, and a set of old-world values. To this family comes young Tommy Zane, entranced by the dream of becoming a flyer, and so familiar with world of the circus as the son of a lion tamer that the lives of non-circus people seem almost unreal to him. He is brought under the wing of Mario Santelli for training, and there is a quickly developing attraction between the two, an attraction that is far more than just physical, an attuning of each to the other that leads to their perfect sense of timing with each other on the trapeze.
It is this point that Bradley develops so well in this novel, the impossibility of separating a person's sexuality from the rest of their lives, that love is far more than just sex. Add to that the environment of that time, when such love could not be freely expressed, and you have the recipe for serious emotional repression and destructive anger. Bradley's characters' feelings and thoughts bristle with such charge that it is impossible not to become caught up in their plight, not to have your own anger raised at the stupidity and prejudice displayed by Angelo, Mario's uncle, and others. The rest of the Santelli family have their own problems, too, somewhat more conventional, but just as heart-breaking, just as real as the family next door. The book's ending is a true emotional uplift, growing out of and very true to Bradley's characters' development into mature individuals.
Bradley's sexual descriptions are only very mildly graphic, but there is some violence depicted here that might disturb some readers. But that is part of the point: it should disturb, that a society's rules, when at odds with basic human nature, can lead to such outbreaks of violence, detrimental to both the involved individuals and the society at large.
An impeccably detailed setting, sharply realized characters that live and breathe, an explosive situation, and a thematic message that is handled with grace and much insight - this is a novel that demands reading, regardless of your own sexual preferences.
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Probably the best novel I've ever read, August 14, 1997
A friend lent me a copy of "The Catch Trap" and the prospect of reading a book about the circus in the 40s and 50s seemed like pure torture. Still, for some strange reason I picked it up and started reading (about a month after it was lent to me). Over the course of the next week, I found it increasingly difficult to put the book down. I stayed up literally all night one night because I just couldn't put it down.
Though I'm usually not a big fan of long novels full of lots of detail, this book is riveting. The characters are full, rich, complicated people with complex, endlessly fascinating relationships. When I finished the book, I was genuinely sad to leave these people I had grown to love. The Santelli family had become real to me, almost as if I belonged to them in some way, and Tommy and Mario were my friends. And I felt like I knew so intimately what the life of traveling circus performers had been like.
In addition to great characters and a great story, Bradley does a superior job of
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