Lives of the Circus Animals

by Christopher Bram

Book Overview

Lives of the Circus Animals is a brilliant new comedy about New York theater people: actors, writers, personal assistants, and a drama critic for the New York Times. They are male, female, straight, gay, in love with their work or in love with each other, and one of them, British star Henry Lewse, the Hamlet of his generation, is famous.

Award-winning novelist Christopher Bram gives us ten days and nights in this small-town world in the heart...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060542543
• ISBN13: 9780060542542
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous novel

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.

A Rare Literary Entertainment

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.

A Word from the Other End of the Spectrum of Critics

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.

Pretty Good

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.

Another treat from Christopher Bram

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.