Customer Reviews

Lives of the Circus Animals

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The best way I know how to describe this frothy, light comedy is to say it's "Tales of the City" set in the New York theatre scene. The book runs just a little over the course of a week, with the various characters interconnected, and each chapter moving from one to the next. There's Henry, the older English thespian who's in a smash Broadway play, his love denied assistant Jessie, and her playwright brother Caleb, as well as Caleb's shallow lover Toby. For anyone who has spent time in the Manhattan theatre world or follows it closely, you may find this a fun, campy, nearly melodramatic read. It didn't seem like the same author who had written the fantastic "Dr August" and "Father of Frankenstein" since it has none of the depth of either of those books. However taken separately, it's a breezy read that brims with heart as a valentine to the the New York theatre and it's inhabitants.

This was a great book. It was definitely a page turner and had a great fast paced story line. It is about a group of Manhattanites during the course of a few days and their lives in and around plays whether on or off Broadway. I liked the book but at the end I felt like I really didn't get to know the character too well. Christopher Bram wrote another wonderful story but I felt that the story was really lacking character development. Besides Caleb and Jessie Doyle you really have no idea of what the characters went through in the past. Like with the youngest character, Toby, the only thing I really know about him is that he is from Wisconsin...that's it. What kind of life did he have in Wisconsin that would make him move to NYC and start to strip? I liked the book a great deal I just thought that it would have been a better book if the author would have fleshed out the characters a little more.

Master storyteller Christopher Bram, auhtor of "Father of Frankenstein" (which was filmed as "Gods and Monsters"), has delivered a wonderful valentine to Broadway with his latest novel "Lives of the Circus Animals."

With wit and keen observations, Bram populates his story with a rich assortment of New York theatre types - a playwright, a famous actor ("the Hamlet of his generation"), a critic, a producer, a number of agents and a myriad of near-do-wells and seekers of fame.

What starts as a series of disconnected scenes establishing each character, quickly develops into a densely integrated plot which coalesces into a rousing, swiftly paced comedy of manners.

Perhaps Bram's greatest strength as an author is his ability to draw and sustain characters who are three dimensional, who exhibit characteristics both exasperating and endearing, who's misadventures we follow eagerly. "Lives of the Circus Animals" is a feast for lovers of drama and literature.

Lives of the Circus Animals is the Lambda Literary Award winning novel by Christopher Bram. I have enjoyed several of Bram's novels, including Father of Frankenstein and Gossip. This novel is reminiscent of an Altman film- a patchwork of characters interrelated, as observed in shifting first person narration and told across seven eventful days in New York.

The novel mostly centers around theatre folk - people whose lives are lived on stage, in some form or another. Several of the characters are actors (to varying levels of success), there is a writer, a critic, and crazed family members.

A great read - Bram is an excellent writer, and this book is enjoyable from first to last.

This was my first Bram novel, and I will eagerly turn to his earlier work. I loved the New York theater milieu and the skill with which he juggled a large cast of characters. Yes, I balked at some outrageous coincidences early in the book, but I was eating out of the author's hand by the denouement. Bram writes convincing sex scenes of various persuasions and offers a broad cast of characters ranging from a famously out British Shakespearean, to a New York-phobic suburban matron, to the New York Times' No. 2 drama critic ("the buzzard of Off-Broadway"). The whole gang ends up at a beautifully handled party scene that brought to mind "La Regle du Jeu." And Chekhov's famous dictum about the gun on the wall comes into play before the final page. Great fun, with sympathy for all its flawed characters.

Admittedly, I was reluctant to give this book a shot. I read, and thoroughly detested, Bram's IN MEMORY OF ANGEL CLAIRE, and I wasn't going to read this offering. I'm extremely glad I reconsidered my decision. Bram's examination of ten days in the lives of an interconnected group of New York "theatre people" was not only insightful it was a delightful, life-affirming reading experience.

The characters met in this book are far from perfect. In fact, they tend to be self-centered and shallow. But they're extremely human, and it's hard not to like them. There is Caleb, a playwright dealing with the failure of his second play after the huge success of his first. The self pity he wallows in makes him, perhaps, the most unsympathetic character in the book.

Along the way we're introduced to Caleb's sister Jessie, an assistant to Broadway star Henry Lewse, and his mother, Molly, a slightly neurotic widow. We also get to know the afore-mentioned Lewse, Toby, a struggling actor and Caleb's discarded boyfriend, Frank an ex-actor in love with Jessie, and Kenneth Prager, a critic for the prestigious New York Times whose reviews have enhanced Lewse's career while helping to destroy Caleb's. All are on a collision course with one another that will have its ultimate denouement at Caleb's self-thrown 41st birthday bash.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. I absolutely adored LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS. Bram provides his reader with a deep yet totally entertaining read. This novel is a delightful comedy of errors that never gets bogged down in the psychological exploration of its characters, a feat not easily accomplished in gay literature. BRAVO! Mr. Bram. I give this extremely literary performance five (*****) well deserved stars.

I read LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS because I had been impressed by THE NOTORIOUS DR. AUGUST. I did enjoy CIRCUS ANIMALS but it is not in the same league with the previous book. On its own terms, however, it's a delightfully sly send-up of the New York theatre scene. Bram intermingles real people (Kathleen Chalfont, Michael Feingold) with fictional characters. One wonders if the fictional characters are recognizable as real people to insiders.

Most of the male characters are homosexuals and the book definitely has a gay point of view. It's very funny and quite sly. It has a theatrical structure with expository scenes introducing all the characters. Soon the different elements began to converge into a rather zany plot. Scenes are far more likely to end with a flourish than a fade. There are cliffhanger act endings and a socko climax before everyone ends up paired off. All that's really missing is the curtain call. If there were a curtain call, I'd shout, "Author! Author!" This is a very entertaining book. I laughed out loud many times while reading it.

There are several sex scenes in the book. The only one that ventures into pornography is the scene wherein a man performs oral sex on a woman. I felt that this scene was gratuitous and in the TMI category. I didn't stop reading the book because of it, but I did think it was unsavory (as `twere).

This book would probably be most appreciated by people who are familiar with the New York theatre scene of the early 2000s, but I don't think that's really necessary to enjoy the book. There are just some extra dividends for insiders. On the whole, this is a slight book from a major writer. THE LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS is to Bram's work what THE SHORT REIGN OF PIPPIN IV is to Steinbeck's oeuvre. It's enjoyable, but certainly not representative.

This is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Especially if like me, you are a New York theatre fan. It starts off a little clumsily, but once it catches some momentum, it hurtles forward with sharply drawn scenes that will often make you laugh out loud, sometimes just from the sheer cleverness of the writing. There's more than a little wisdom in Bram's story about love and relationships in contemporary New York. A very satisfying tale of people finding their ways to each other. Highly recommended. And the "Ian McKellen" character is terrifically funny.

Christopher Bram is simply one of our best writers of fiction today. His previous works have met with well-founded acclaim ("The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes", and "Father of Frankenstein"), but for some reason THE LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS isn't popular with most readers. I'm not at all sure why. This beautifully constructed book has vividly drawn characters, humor, scandal, absurdities, love form all sides of the sexual spectrum, tenderness, warmth, and a Ringmaster's viewpoint of just how untamable 'animals' can be. The plot centers around the misadventures of groups of theater people in New York City - actors, playwrights, critics, and wannabes - and Bram manages to stir the cauldron of these characters with such sensitivity that in the end - the Grand Finale of a birthday party - the whole extravaganza comes to a pitch perfect boiling point. The coda to the book shows very subtle resolution of all the lives. Bram's title comes from a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Circus Animals' Desertion" and at one point out main character, the playwright Caleb refers to it " Where he says he gave his heart to the theater, but he's all burned out and his animals have run off. It's the poem with the lines 'I must lie down where all the ladders start,/In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.'" Bram runs with this terrific quote and has created a novel that, for this reader, is equal to his other fine works. Highly recommended.

After reading "Gods & Monsters" I thought I'd enjoy another Christopher Bram book but this one is not as good. Perhaps because he had his sad ending in "Monsters" forced upon him because his story was lightly based on a real man where "Lives of Circus Animals" is pure fiction with an ending that ties up in a big gaudy bow. (Though like all "fiction" there is reality here too, I'm sure.)

I had just finished reading, "Three Uses of the Knife" by David Mamet" probably recommended to me through "Amazon" because I read "Monsters". (Mamet's name is mentioned in "Circus".) Mamet's book is beyond me; too difficult for my simple thinking to grasp. But he does talk some about the distinction between entertainment that makes you feel good and good art. "Circus" is entertainment. It's not art. I think "Monsters" is art, but I'm not sure.

These homosexual books are sort of fun because the men can't be bothered with dating and so there's no need for the dull restaurant seen before our lovers end up in bed. No superfluous seductions. Men just have sex, no prelude necessary. So, consequently, the book reads a little like a trash novel; a trash novel by the way, I read in three days so it had to have something going for it. I think it might be that Bram is an excellent writer. He has great dialog and he sets the seen enough so you get it but he doesn't dwell and he has a talent for making you want to know what happens next.

"Circus" for me anyway was a little voyeuristic because I've never sat on the seamed side of the theater curtain and it was pure fun to see how the entertainers live. There are little jabs to the straight life. For example he made a metaphor between a man picking up theater props after actors and a "sexless" wife picking up after children. There may be some truth to that. Ouch.

In this book our English Shakespeare Company actor gets the big multi-million (can't remember how many millions) Hollywood blockbuster part. Everybody beds everybody but there are no hard feelings (well, maybe there are too many hard feelings) and everybody is everybody else's friend despite being a former lover. (I am just now wondering if the acceptance of homosexuality has given birth to the "friends with benefits" phenomenon in the heterosexual culture.)

At the end of this book, everybody is happy; everybody is rich or well on their way to fame and fortune. Even our straight couple is happy. They know they will lose their homosexual friends as they skyrocket to glory and hire new "trade" to care for their mundane needs. But our couple has come to terms with their mediocre heterosexual talents; that it can yield them only minor rewards, but they understand that this is deservedly so; that they can bask in the spill light if only momentarily. For those who can never master true narcissism because their sex yields those pesky beasts called children, rendering you sexless, spill light, like trickledown economies, should be enough.