Review: Circus of the Scars : The True Inside Odyssey of a Modern Circus Sideshow

Circus of the Scars : The True Inside Odyssey of a Modern Circus Sideshow by Jan T. Gregor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This road manager memoir concludes with his involvement in the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. It covers the birth with Jim Rose enlisting The Marvels, a first national tour in Canada, prominence as the second stage show at the 1992 Lollapalooza, and more including Europe, etc. In 1994, Jim Rose changed the lineup and dropped "sideshow" from the billing and featured female sumo wrestling, Mexican transvestite wrestling, and chainsaw football. I saw that later implementation 14 October 1994 at The Majestic Theatre in Detroit. While I am disappointed not to have that part of the story, this is great for the level of detail and involvement of sideshow history in a creative nonfiction way. While the actual Marvels visit historic places and people from sideshow history, the creative nonfiction dimension is the "Tunchi diaries" as the group's shrunken head in a jar recalls key points over many decades of touring sideshow history.

As part of this memoir, we get:

* the cross-dressing and daring personality of The Amazing Mister Lifto (Joe Hermann),
* Bebe the Circus Queen (Beatrice Aschard) and spouse Jim Rose as they exert a controlling and morale-killing hold on The Marvels,
* Matt "The Tube" Crowley, whose experimentation leads him to invent the stomach pump tube act known as Gavage
* Zamora the Torture King (Tim Cridland) and co-author finds even his incredible levels of endurance cannot allow him to persist with Rose. But, I distinctly recall talking to him (and seeing what looked like pierced cheeks) at The Shelter in Detroit. In my mind, this was an aftershow for 14 October 1994. So, either he was still with Rose then or it was an earlier, unrelated performance such as Lollapalooza 1992 or State Theater on Devil's Night, 1993.
* The Enigma (Paul Lawrence), was originally known as Slug and would eat anything (including slugs, worms, and grasshoppers), and swallow swords. He also doubled as the show's organ player. Here he transforms into The Enigma and has his body being to be completely tattooed with blue jigsaw puzzle pieces as he raises a family and defines his own destiny.

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