Home |Register |Sign In Home Top Picks: All Books Orphans of the Carnival Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch Price: $27.95 (Hardcover) MorePublished: November 08, 2016 Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast) From the Publisher: From the Booker short-listed author of Jamrach's Menagerie comes the extraordinary, moving, and unsettling tale of a woman, branded a freak from birth, who becomes an internationalsensation but longs for genuine human connection London had the best freaks, always had.</p><p> The Egyptian Hall, the Promenade of Wonders, theSiamese twins, pinheads, midgets, cannibals, giants, living skeletons, the fat, the hairy, the legless, the armless, the noseless, London had seen it all.</p><p> In the Hall of Ugliness the competition was stiff.</p><p> But noone had everseen anything quite like Julia . . .</p><p> Pronounced by the most eminent physician of the day to be "a true hybrid wherein the nature of womanpresides over that of the brute," Julia Pastrana stood apart from the other carnival acts.</p><p> She was fluent in English, French and Spanish, an accomplished musician with an… Rate This Book Add To Wishlist |Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf Get This Book Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where you can get this book.</p><p> What We Say Freaks have always fascinated and the memorable Julia Pastrana is unquestionably a freak.</p><p> Born in the mountains of Mexico, she is sheltered by a local bigwig and grows up mostly hidden from the world.</p><p> But the world comes to her and wonders, isshe human? Animal? The Missing Link? Some deviant spawn of a man and an orangutang? For Julia speaks several languages, sings and dances quite well and is as hairy as an ape, sporting a face that makes people gasp in its simian appearance.</p><p> Is she real? Julia wonders herself.</p><p> In Carol Birch's quietly unnerving novel, Birch does one thing in particular very, very well:she never lets us forget for a moment that both Julia and everyone around her is always aware of her appearance, eitherShare This Book About The Author Carol Birch CAROL BIRCH is the author of eleven previous novels, including Turn Again Home , which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Jamrach's Menagerie , which was a Man Booker Prize finalist and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the London Book Award.</p><p> Release Info List Price: $27.95 (Hardcover) Published: November 08, 2016 Publisher: Doubleday Pages: 352 ISBN 10: 038554152X ISBN 13: 9780385541527studiously avoiding comment or delighting in it or disturbed and obsessed by it or a million other reactions.</p><p> But indifferent? Never.</p><p> Not a page goes by without some comment or action, some word or gesture, some stray thought by Julia and strangers or even friends ("That mouth! Those lips!") which reminds you again and again that she is ineluctably different.</p><p> It is exhausting and pitying and sad and one never becomes inured to it, any more than Julia can.</p><p> She travels the world andfinds fame and fortune and even happiness of a sort -- sort of -- with her manager Theodore Lent, who is as uncertain of hisown motives as Julia or anyone else.</p><p> Author Birch gets under your skin and remains there without ever becomingsentimental or letting you off the hook by striving to see "beyond" who and what Julia is -- she never can, so why should we? There's a minor, secondary plot set in the present that ties in both symbolically and literally to this tale.</p><p> It's not a flaw, but I was never quite convinced it was necessary, either.</p><p> The novel is based loosely on a real woman named JuliaPastrana, as an end note tells us.</p><p> And if that doesn't send you to Google where you can call up her image and stare andstare, well then you're a better person than me. -- Michael Giltz What Others Say An IndieNext List and USA Today Pick “Think Love Potion #9 meets The Night Circus and yet wholly unique and fantastic in its own right.” --Marie Claire "If readers can resist looking Pastrana up on the internet before finishing the novel, they will be rewarded by the sort of bizarre twist that can happen only in real life. ...enjoyable and moving" --The Financial Times "Roll up, roll up, for a beautifully written novel about the poignant inner life of 19th-century touring freakshowattraction Julia Pastrana"--The Guardian “Birch’s novel does more than tell the story of a woman and performer, it brings to light the dangers of exploitation and dehumanization.</p><p> With great sensitivity and compassion, Birch reclaims Julia Pastrana’s humanity and offers an opportunity to see this woman the way she should have been seen more than 150 years ago.”--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "A strange, transfixing novel....gorgeously written...</p><p> Orphans of the Carnival is about how we can find humanity in all fellow creatures, which is surely a message worth pondering now… More What You Say Filter by No Reviews Found ..... about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc.</p><p> All Rights Reserved.
