A novel about American carnival life and the hopes and disappointments of low-income people after WWII, written with unusual directness, honesty and charm by a lifetime resident of the Finger Lakes region of New York. Its heroine is Zelma, daughter of the Fat Lady and the Thin Man.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"In passages as deft as this [the excerpt above]--and there are several in the novel-- Tifft's background as a poet is revealed, but the scenes in which she describes Zelma's dancing and falling in love remain the most skillful. They are a breathless rush of movement and passion for life that find their fullest expression here... This new novelist is full of talent and verbal richness... -- Chelsea No. 62, 1997
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Now the dances are purely my own, from far inside me. I don't think steps, only my first rides on the merry-go-round and my fascination with an old steam piano in a circus parade. I'll do the slow careful tracking of those elephants in that very poor circus we played with once. I'll do the power and balance of the tigers, I'll do part of the clumsy clown and I'll mimic the sad captive bear trying to shake the bars loose. I'll mimic the animals' slow walking in their cages, then lunging at the trainer who feeds them. And, now, suddenly, it is all even past imagining, into my own way with a shrug or a shoulder shake, a bent leg where, before, a stiff one with a pointed toe would do. I'm remembering what I never thought of before.
My audience has changed into a Prince. I will never be able to dance enough for this stranger. I am Garbo and Carole Lombard, and then Goodnight Irene is being played. Oh, not yet! It couldn't have been a half- hour yet. I've found the answer to everything I've always wondered about. I dance a bike going downhill fast to a stop.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing with Zelma,
By David DeGolyer (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Moon, Moon, Tell Me True (Paperback)
Ellen Tifft deftly paints a story of the past, of a time when carnival sideshows traveled the country, when carved wooden horses seemed to come to life on carousels, and when simple things like truth and honor and love were still important. Tifft masterfully weaves together two stories of love: one is the tale of a young sideshow dancer named Zelma who somehow manages to find the keeper of her heart even though fate seems to have other plans, and the second is the Indian myth of two doomed lovers forever associated with the bottomless Aldridge Lake. But the true beauty of the novel is the fact that Tifft has the commendable ability to take the reader to a deeper level of involvement with the characters, beyond that of mere observers of the central love stories. She allows the reader a unique and uninhibited look into the very essence of her soul, and the experience proves to be both exhilirating and cleansing. The further one delves into the lives of the characters of Tifft's novel, the more real they seem and, despite the difficulties they endure, the more at peace the reader feels. Mrs. Tifft's poetic powers are obvious, and the imagery she employs lends an almost magical element to her prose, sweeping the reader up in a tale of love and sacrifice and courage. Zelma is no cardboard character, she is full of innocence and desire and verve. She is a dreamer whose naive actions lead to consequences which appear to wipe out any chance of her realizing her dreams, which would smother the passion and exuberance of most, yet she somehow manages to persevere. Zelma is a wonderful example of the modern literary hero, as she encounters various faces of evil and despair without losing her sense of intergrity and hope. Mrs. Tifft offers the reader a remarkable ride on a carousel of the imagination which is sure to haunt and to please.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My review focuses on character, plot, and literary genre.,
By Ellen Blais (eblais@epix.net) (Mansfield, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Moon, Moon, Tell Me True (Paperback)
Ellen Tifft, lifelong resident of Elmira, New York, has published poetry and short fiction in a variety of literary magazines, including The New Yorker and Poetry, for the past forty some years. Moon, Moon, Tell Me True is her first published novel, but it reads like something she's been preparing for all her life. Set in Annovia, a fictionalized Elmira, from 1947 to 1956, the novel's heroine is 19 yr old Zelma Prokova, daughter of Gene Tunney Prokov and his wife Peg. Gene and Peg are the stick man and fat woman of a traveling sideshow that spends five months on the road and six months in Annovia. Zelma has been performing since she was five and is a regular dancer in the "girly show," but she dreams of performing for much larger audiences than the side show world brings in. All of this sounds realistic, but Tifft is a home grown magic realist. Her characters, from Mister and Al, the side show's Indian fortune teller and hermaphrodite, to Raymond-Guy, the itinerant, foreign-born sidewalk chalk painting artist, who sweeps Zelma off her feet, inhabit a world in which the villainous Dwain Slocum, sideshow manager, attempts the rape and even murder of our heroine Zelma. Zelma dances herself into mystical trances, falls in love, gives birth on a river barge, and is almost lured into death by drowning in the lake at Aldridge Park. And all of this Tifft achieves through a language, half dialect, half poetry that captures the offhand way people talk better than anything I've ever read. But you really have to read this unique novel for yourself. It will take you on a journey through mythic realms to a resolution as satisfying as the end of The Tempest or The Magic Flute.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing with Zelma,
By David DeGolyer (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Moon, Moon, Tell Me True (Paperback)
Ellen Tifft deftly paints a story of the past, of a time when carnival sideshows traveled the country, when carved wooden horses seemed to come to life on carousels, and when simple things like truth and honor and love were still important. Tifft masterfully weaves together two stories of love: one is the tale of a young sideshow dancer named Zelma who somehow manages to find the keeper of her heart even though fate seems to have other plans, and the second is the Indian myth of two doomed lovers forever associated with the bottomless Aldridge Lake. But the true beauty of the novel is the fact that Tifft has the commendable ability to take the reader to a deeper level of involvement with the characters, beyond that of mere observers of the central love stories. She allows the reader a unique and uninhibited look into the very essence of her soul, and the experience proves to be both exhilirating and cleansing. The further one delves into the lives of the characters of Tifft's novel, the more real they seem and, despite the difficulties they endure, the more at peace the reader feels. Mrs. Tifft's poetic powers are obvious, and the imagery she employs lends an almost magical element to her prose, sweeping the reader up in a tale of love and sacrifice and courage. Zelma is no cardboard character, she is full of innocence and desire and verve. She is a dreamer whose naive actions lead to consequences which appear to wipe out any chance of her realizing her dreams, which would smother the passion and exuberance of most, yet she somehow manages to persevere. Zelma is a wonderful example of the modern literary hero, as she encounters various faces of evil and despair without losing her sense of intergrity and hope. Mrs. Tifft offers the reader a remarkable ride on a carousel of the imagination which is sure to haunt and to please.
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