Spangle Volume I: The Road Show

by Gary Jennings

Book Overview

Gary Jennings, author of Aztec and Aztec Autumn, presents us with his most exciting novel to date. This exotic, erotic tour of the post-Civil War South swells witth the most colorful characters you... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812564715
• ISBN13: 9780812564716
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A Great Circus Adventure, A Super Novel

Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted. Oh, well. So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book. You'll love this novel about a traveling carnival in the years after the Civil War. The details of carnival life are fascinating, and it really gives you a picture of a forgotten America. Jennings tells a wonderful story with some funny lines thrown in. Here's one: "Florian told me that we must never let ourselves be bound by propriety, precedent, convention or morality, those things are recipes for banality." What a perfect description of a character. You can almost hear him saying, "Step right up, I've got a deal for you."

This series is Jennings second best work.

I was a collector of Jennings's books before many of these got reprinted in paperback, so I haven't actually read Roadshow as an individual work, but as a hardback version of the entire circus story. The whole story, Spangle, was Jennings's second best book, after Aztec. It has violence, sex, and bizarre plot turns that keep you interested, as well as a historical look at circuses, post Civil War America, and 1860's Europe, a continent on the brink of its own war (the Franco-Prussian War). Although not quite as rich historically as Aztec, the series is much longer and covers more territory, so it's my personal favorite. If you like Jennings and you realize that Roadshow was not meant to be a stand-alone work, you won't be disappointed in this series.

Spangle, Journeyer, and Aztec.... WOW!

Incredible reads: chunky, lurid, twisted, funny, sad, and simply great page turners throughout. In Spangle, even if you fail to get engrossed by the characters themselves (I don't see how that can happen) you learn so much about circus life itself. Even now, I can't look at a contortionist without thinking about this book.You can't go wrong!!

Another Jenning's classic with fabulous characters

As a Jenning's fan, I felt lucky to pick up Road Show at the airport book shop. Jenning's round up of new characters are as colorful as ever. I enjoy Jenning's ability to draw me into the very heart of the story. The settings are well researched and the post civil war imagery springs to life with Jennings detailed discriptive language. I read voraciously about this vagabond circus troop, their joys and their losses; and I was disappointed to finish the book without the next already in hand. I am waiting on the edge of my seat to finish the saga.