Freakshow

by Jacquin Sanders

Freakshow has occupied a unique niche in underground American literature since 1954. It's a novel which chronicles the somehow-disturbing love affair between Bat Fidler, a troubled, lonely guy and roust-about, and Fish Girl, a beautiful but disfigured sideshow performer, providing amazingly authentic glimpses into both carnival and prison life and defiantly unmasking the freak show that usually passes for contemporary love. Not for the squeamish.

242 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[tortoise dreams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the story involves (a small amount of) sex and the residents of a carnival freak show, it's not overly sensationalized or exploitative. The real center of the story is fairly obviously how the misanthropic (loners, if you will) can feel marginalized and excluded from normal society -- in a rousing good and realistic yarn of carny life. From 1954.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freakshow aka, Strip the Heart is a well-written noir novel set in a carnival touring various small Texas towns in the early 1950s. It chronicles the travails of professional boxer/wrestler Bat Fidler as he falls in love with one of the freaks (albeit, a beautiful one) in the carnival where he works.

Despite the noir atmosphere of the novel, it is beautifully-written and the main character sympathetic, though he makes it clear through out, he wants no one's sympathy.

I would have given the book five stars, if not for all the Texas clichés that abound, particularly in the last half of the book.

[Steve D · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many ways I loved this book. It's an easy and satisfying read about a guy who, in almost every way, should be playing the Game of Life on easy mode, what with his physical advantages and his employability. But despite his best efforts to fit in, he finds he has more in common with the freaks of a travelling freak-show, than he does with normal people and their normal lives. I feel like some of the Northern / Southern politics went over my head a bit, but I got the gist that our hero was a fish-out-of-water wherever he went.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freakshow is a hard call.
I only remembered it because I dragged out the Deptford Trilogy for a fried tonight and the circus theme brought it back to mind. I read this novel well over 25 years ago and was drawn to it over one of the reviews on the back cover which said 'this book is so disgusting every copy should be sold with its own sick bag.'
If it is the Freakshow I remember, and if I have the right novel, there was good cause for that comment. Not for the squeamish but what a read.