American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History's Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers by Hartzman, Marc(November 17, ) Hardcover on.
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- All American Sideshow
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About the Author Marc Hartzman has been writing professionally since TarcherPerigee; Reprint edition September 21, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video.
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Read reviews that mention lives freaks human sideshows shows informative living pictures fascinating oddities become subject present hartzman entertaining brief facts given humor fat. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. I was excited to come across this book, but was a bit let down after reading several of the stories. The people featured in this book had lives that were anything but dull, so it's a shame for the book to be dull.
When I read a Wikipedia entry on an individual person, living or dead, the "Personal Life" section is the one that's always most interesting to me. Rather than having the all-inclusivity of an encyclopedic collection of literally ever sideshow performer from year X to year X, with just niblets of information on each, I would have much preferred fewer "chapters" focused on more details on fewer individual lives. As other reviewers have already pointed out, you quickly become cross-eyed reading the life story of one "world's tallest person," followed back-to-back by the life story of another "world's tallest person," and have their stories be more or less the same time after time.
It becomes mind-numbing and uninteresting after three or four of those. This book is just what it says it is: I don't consider all the people in the book as "freaks. I found it to be educational and extremely interesting.
One of those books I couldn't put down! I grew up around a person who was born with extreme deformities, but that person was never in a sideshow, and he isn't in this book, of course. Because of living around that person my dad's hired hand , I never discriminated against people who are "different" and I used to get very angry at people who stared at him.
This book makes one realize that these people who are different have real lives, just like the rest of us. Marc Hartzman has undertaken an ambitious project: Starting with the golden era under P. Barnum, Hartzman gives the reader brief biographical introductions to these unusual performers. Hartzman's prose offers a good humored look at the place where truth and hype converge in the lives of these human oddities. The text is accompanied by rare photographs from the author's and other collections including that of yours truly.
I find it gratifying that whereas most books focus on sideshow's illustrious or dubious past, Hartzman also takes time to acknowledge the contemporary performers and showmen keeping the tradition alive out there on the sawdust trail.
The short, the tall, the fat, the tattooed, the conjoined, the hirsute, the limbless: This book is informative, thorough and makes a lively read. Hartzman obviously has a lot of passion and affection for his subject. He has detailed the lives of many odd, strange and unique human beings in a refreshingly straight forward manner. He has a light touch and a wry sense of humor that pokes through from time to time. It is apparent that this was a labor of love and the author brings the book right up to date with a review of contemporary performers who are bringing various aspects of the sideshow to modern audiences.
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The book opens in the 'golden age' of the sideshow, from the s, through the Barnum years up to the early s. A time when the only way rural working people could be 'amazed and amused' was when the circus or the fair blew in to town. Hartzman documents some of the most famous performers and human exhibits of that period. He continues through the 'silver' age, around the end of WW1 through to the Vietnam era. And finishes with the 'modern' age. The three sections document nicely the rise, decline and subtle rebirth of this unique corner of American theater.
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In a world where reality TV rules supreme, it is gratifying to read a book that is dedicated to celebrating those who truly kept it and continue to keep it very real. The pictures alone are worth the price of the book, stop reading and order it. When one reads the thumbnail few are any more detailed than this biographies of several fat ladies, a pall of sameness settles over it all. Part of it comes from the subject: This author enhances that experience by writing them mostly in the same words, very often cliched ones at that.
His attempts at humor are pretty much at the level of nudge, nudge, wink, wink: Yes, he is sympathetic to these folks, and few thoughtful people could really argue with the proposition "what else are they going to do for a living? It was often a very good living indeed. Sadly, the sideshow has become passe, and with it a way of life that gave strange people a community--obviously often a rich and supportive one.
This book was completely fascinating. Each story was so interesting. Great way to learn about the old American sideshows and the "freaks" who made them possible. I purchased this book as my son is interested in the Elephant man and similiar stories. When it arrived I sat and read it myself for a few hours. It is absorbing, full of pictures, and each person is given a short biography of their life and what they accomplished, suffered, and how they eventually died.
The author does not view the persons as freaks, but as unfortunate victims of nature. A world and history that few know. This book really puts to rest the difference of exploitation and the right to work. See all 42 reviews. Most recent customer reviews.
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