Circus Parade

by Jim Tully

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Jim Tully was an American vagabond, pugilist, and writer. He enjoyed critical and commercial success as a writer in the 1920s and 1930s.

Reviews

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of autobiographical vignettes of the author's experiences working as a roustabout in a circus is a direct sequel to his memoirs of life as a young hobo.

Originally published in 1927, it was a controversial best seller banned in many cities for its frank treatment of sex and truck-loads of violence.

The period the events covered in this memoir occurred was roughly the years between 1907-1915.
The America described in this book is what author Greil Marcus referred to in his book on Bob Dylan, The Band (and others) in as "the strange, weird America".

Lynchings are common occurrences throughout the South and the circus of that time is the place of the amoral, immoral, devious, thieving detritus of life, murderers, drug addicts hooked on morphine and heroin and cheap booze or canned heat. The women are less than virtuous but every last one of them has a heart of gold.
Alternately breathtaking, heartbreaking, and hilarious, it is recommended whether you're interested in pop-culture history or not.

If you're looking for the genuine origin of the school of hardboiled writing, you absolutely have to start here.

[On Bob Cameron, owner of the circus and his wife]
His nose slanted in the opposite direction of his jaw. He was nearly blind in one eye. It had a streak across it; thin as a razor blade from one corner to the other. In vitality and gusto he was ageless. Sardonic and brutal, he cared for nothing on earth but his circus and the scarecrow woman who traveled with him as his wife.

She weighed about a hundred pounds, and was wrinkled, yellow and cracked like thin leather in the rain. Her face was not much larger than a sickly baby's. She looked to be ninety. Age had touched her with a wicked leer. One could have placed a pencil in the hollow of her eyes, which were rheumy and of a weird green color like a weed the frost had touched. She had been a bare-back rider, and her hands were overdeveloped. Her shoulders stooped forward as she walked. Her nature, no larger than herself, was mean and petty. The "Strong Woman" had once called her a baby buzzard. It was the name by which she was afterward known among us.

It was said that she had been married seven times. She lived in her belligerent past. "I was born on a horse's back - it's nobody's damn business when," she often said.

...Seventy years on the road, the monotony of it often made her mentally ill. Many times around the world, her imagination was so limited that it was all of one pattern to her. "It ain't no different - some people's yellow and some's black and some's Irish," she used to say. "It's all a helluva mess." She preceded every remark with a snarl.

In moods of mental illness she would lie and look out of the window with the defiant expression of an old hag that would not die. When some of my licentious doggerel had been shown to Cameron by the Lion Tamer, he decided that I would be a good companion for the Baby Buzzard, who loved everything in books that concerned illicit love. Her lascivious mind reeked with fantastic tales of sex..."

Unforgettable stuff!

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mar 30, 10am ~~ Another to add to the Review ASAP pile. I need to either slow down my reading or speed up my reviewing. There is an imbalance somewhere. ;-))

Apr 2, 8pm ~~ Circus Parade is Jim Tully's 1927 book about a season he spent as a roustabout in a circus.

When I was very much younger than I am now, I was certain sure I would grow up to be one of three things: a lady pirate, the wife of Little Joe Cartwright, or a circus performer.

None of those plans ever came to anything: I was too gentle to be a pirate, too shy to be a circus performer, and that darned old Little Joe wasn't even a real person. Oh well.

The beauty of books is that a reader with a proper imagination can do anything: I have been the first female Dread Pirate Roberts, I married Zorro (so there, Little Joe), and I have done almost every type of act in the circus.

But I never did imagine myself as a plain old roustabout, one of the people who do the circus grunt work. There could be no show without them, but in my daydreams I was always high up on the trapeze or posing like a ballerina on a broad backed horse.

I read this book the first time many years before GR, and thought it was rough, raw, sometimes gruesome and a bit repulsive, like picking up a rock and seeing all sorts of icky creatures running for cover.

I still felt that way this time through, but I also sensed that Tully told an honest and straightforward tale about the backside of the circus, the part we 'rubes' never really pay attention to.

Each chapter introduces a personage or event, and by the end of the book I was as much a part of Cameron's World's Greatest Combined Shows as The Moss-Haired Girl and The Strong Woman.

But my goodness what a different life the roustabouts had compared to the performers! They were mostly hobos who needed a short break from the road (as in Tully's case) and many would switch from one circus to another at the drop of a clown's hat.

The circus people were a strange sort of family. Tully says the performers were "...more snobbish than any class of people I had ever seen. We looked upon them with mingled disdain and awe."

But those same performers would pitch in and help with whatever work needed to be done if there was a shortage of roustabouts with the circus, even to playing an instrument in the band. Like I said, they were a family.

I enjoyed this book but I will give the usual caveat: if politically incorrect language offends you, don't read it. Tully wrote authentically in the language of his day and his world. Rough and raw, remember that.

[Paul Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not a lengthy read, it would be fair to say that Jim Tully knows exactly how to tug at the heart strings even though you may have little in common with his characters. Set in the circus from the point of view of one of it's "lesser" workers, Circus Parade tells the tales of both the circus and it's varied characters as they wend their way through the many towns they visit. Tully is amusing, perceptive, and often heart-rending as he relays the various antics. It might not be an uplifting narrative, but it is worth reading.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may have been completely shocking to the audience for whom it was written in the 1920s. As someone whose life started with a steady IV of Bugs Bunny, Max Fleischer, Monkees, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Our Gang, and extensive readings on life in the rock and roll circus; most of it resonates almost as though it was written yesterday. For instance, the author felt he had to explain carnie slang which was familiar to every gradeschool kid in the seventies as "pig latin." I had no idea that's where it originated, as during a shell game when the operator tells his shills to "ushpay the umpchay oserclay" ["push the chump closer"]. Yes, I understood that!.

Another word that was apparently not in mainstream use was "crummy," which meant bug-infested. In fact the biggest complaint was the sleeping quarters, which was not only filled with bugs, but also smelled awful which anyone who has been around a horse stable can imagine. Even the train engineer at the last stop said, "I'm done smelling this!"

The only clue as to the year in which the action takes place is when one of the vagabonds who joins as a "stake driver" mentions that he made the mistake of joining the Navy because wanted to see the world "now that Roosevelt is sending his boats around it," except all he did was shovel coal until he deserted in San Francisco. Then he got robbed of his whole paycheck in Alabama, which had the toughest anti-vagrancy laws in the country. Basically, anyone found guilty had to pay off a seventy-five dollar fine at twenty cents a day in a coal mine [plus the cost of prison clothes which was another seven dollars]. Therefore, I am guessing it to be around 1902. It's left murky because hobo types, then as now, are largely unaware of current events.

This of course, is what made the circus so attractive. While it sounded only a half step above the abject misery of the hobo camps, at least you had a guaranteed seat on the train and, as Roger Daltry said of the early days touring with the Who, "at least we got paid... sometimes." Of course, in rock and roll, the tour manager did "red light" anyone aka throw them from a train to get out of paying [at least that I know of]. That this was not the big league Barnum and Bailey Circus probably goes without saying, although it was probably not too much worse.

This also corroborates other books I had read like Topsy about the elephant who went to the electric chair at Coney Island because he attacked a person. The elephant handler in this story is more of an animal lover who felt the victims deserved it, because it was only the cruel elephant-tamers that were attacked. The author himself displays similarly "evolved" views on race and homosexuality which was outside the mainstream, despite the profusion of language that would indicate otherwise.

I can't figure out how much of this really happened because, although this is presented as autobiography, the story feels like it was slightly invented for dramatic impact. If anything, it reminds me of the movie Freaks if you mashed it up with The Greatest Show on Earth because of course, it has to end with a fire at the big top. I wonder how much Hollywood was influenced by it, because on its own, it would make a great movie.

The problem with eBooks of totally forgotten works is that sometimes you end up with an old book that was placed on a scanner and transferred with OCR resulting in quite a few garbled words. Most of the time I was able to plow through it because I knew what they meant like "down" was obviously "clown." Other times not so much. For instance, I was not sure if we were talking about one elephant or three named "Roxie," "Rosie," or "Rorie." However, I cannot take stars from the actual book itself because it is still well worth reading.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite a large number of typos in this e-book edition, Jim Tully's story of life with a traveling circus in the early 20th century is gritty and fascinating. "Circus Parade" is an autobiographical story of Tully's teen years working for a less-than-reputable circus. We experience his take on everything from life with the roustabouts, performers, sideshow attractions and animals to the deceit and treachery inherent in such an atmosphere. No one gets to the end of the season unscathed. Yet, despite all the danger, most of the circus crew would rather have the "freedom" of the road than the relative security of the rubes who come to see the show. No romanticism here, it is a rough and unglamorous life. 3.5 stars

[Bobarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect before reading this book. I haven't read many from this era before but the idea of circus life experiences firsthand fascinated me. After finishing it, I feel that it was a great blend of fiction and reality. I'm not sure what to believe as I read it but I enjoyed each story. This is also the first book I've read from 100 years ago that didn't make me bored or constantly have to look up words. It's written as a common tongue of the time which still holds up well today. I cannot wait to read more Jim Tully books after finishing this one.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bleak portrait of life with a traveling circus, Circus Parade focuses on anecdotes and character sketches rather than sustained narrative. As a result, the proceedings may sometimes be tedious, especially for readers familiar with the subject matter.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incidents among the down and out circus performers and con men. It's more a memoir than a work of fiction -- I liked Beggars of Life more, but liked this very much.

[Janelle Corr · Rating 4 out of 5]

old-timey gnarl

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd recommend this to fans of Hemingway, hard-boiled crime authors of the 1930s and 40s, and "Freaks" (the Todd Browning film, although fans of real life freaks would probably enjoy it too).

[TalkinHorse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say this is a bad book; maybe it's a good book or historically useful or even important. But it's so damned downbeat and depressing that I have to frown upon it. I come away feeling unclean, thinking of the world as inhabited exclusively by lowly beasts whose only goal in life is to take petty and nasty advantage over other beasts. Is that what life is? Is that what's really behind the cheerful façade of the circus? If so, maybe I don't want to know.

Here are the opening lines, and they convey the pervasive negativity of which I speak.

1. The Lion Tamer

It was my second hobo journey through Mississippi. After the first I had vowed never to return, but Arkansas moonshine had changed my plans. Three times the first week I narrowly escaped arrest. Then hurrying toward Louisiana, I lost track of the days of the week and month. There was no need to know. I had, as the hoboes say, dragged a long haul from Hot Springs, Arkansas to McComb City, Mississippi, some hundreds of miles. The latter is a sun-scorched group of frame houses stretched forlornly along the Illinois Central tracks, ninety miles from New Orleans.

Half dazed from loss of sleep, weak from hunger, and irritated by vermin-infested clothes, I resolved to leave the road for a spell. The terrible Mississippi vagrancy law hung over me. Under that law an officer is given two dollars and a half for every vagrant he captures alive. In other parts of the United States a tramp is not molested if he keeps off railroad property, but in Mississippi he is hunted up hill and down dale for the two dollars and fifty cents.

Once captured, he is given a fine of seventy-five dollars. Having no money, he is made to work the fine out -- at twenty cents a day! This comes to about eleven months and twenty-nine days, allowing a few days for good behavior. But there is furthermore, a joker. The prisoner always needs clothing. He is charged three dollars for a fifty-cent pair of overalls, and seven dollars for a pair of dollar-and-a-quarter brogans. These debts are added to his sentence and worked out at twenty cents a day. It is no uncommon thing for a friendless man to spend several years as a peon in Mississippi. So I had reason to worry.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in 1927, this is an autobiographical romp of the nearly forgotten writer Jim Tully who growing tired of being a hobo, joined a traveling circus, meeting many interesting characters here. Tully is considered the co-father, along with Dashiell Hammet, of hard boiled literature. He writes with a blunt, brutal style, occasionally mixing in similes to offset the amoral attitude of the author and his companions.
Like his previous novel, Beggars of Life, the author quickly rips away any glamour to the occupation which myth or romanticism might have draped circus life with. In fact those who did join with romantic ideas in their heads, were used for quick labor, then robbed and red-lighted - thrown from a moving train car in-between cities. Only the hardnosed, hard hitting crooks who hated everyone ever lasted in the circus. It was a profession for the born loser, the malcontent, the innate drifter, and the simple-headed. Not the young boy with stars in his eyes.

Like his previous books, Shanty Irish and Beggars for Life, the book is presented as a series of vignettes, focusing one circus character or aspect about life in the big top. As it is not presented chronologically, it seems that Tully spent much longer in the circus, rather than actually six months. We are given glimpses of interesting characters like the Moss Haired Girl, who died to hair to look like mossy tree bark and pretended to be feral; Lila the Strong Woman, who read too many romance novels and ended up having her heart broken; and John Quincey Adams the black clown who worked in whiteface who, after finding his true calling, comes to a terrible end.

Tully was criticized for the obvious embellishments he made during some of the stories here. Several circus men pointed out his lack of usage of slang idioms common in circus life. The author did write it later in life, and there probably weren’t too many reference books he could consult on the topic, so I believe that accounts for any factual errors. But overall it is a telling and often brutal look behind the tarp of circus life. A world which literally is part of a bygone era - now that Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus has folded its big top for the last time.

[Mike Trippiedi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Tully's 1927 memoir of his days as a hobo who worked a season with a traveling circus is not for anyone that is looking for a romanticize take on carnival life in the early part of the 20th century. "Circus Parade" is a no-holds-barred look at desperate times and even more desperate people.
The exploitation of the 400 pound woman, the Black man who becomes a white faced clown, the elephant that gets revenge on its cruel trainer, and all of the heroin addicted hobos and their stories of murder, theft, and hardships, are just a few of the dark, gritty, and raw tales presented here by the man who led the life and lived to tell.

[Jo Besser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious to see what life was like riding along with the Circus in the golden age of circuses. This book definitely delivered. Told in an entertaining way, easy and quick read.

[Elena Kho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honest and brutal, an interesting experience. Didn't expect I'd ever have a chance to read stories by a person characterized as a "famous vagabond" by Wikipedia and as a "hobo" in his own words.

[Cindy Steinberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Stark and edgy story about the tough life in a traveling circus.This book really told of the harsh life of what it was like to travel the country in a circus wagon in the early part of the 1900's.

[JJ Kitchenette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am so over "hobo lit."