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Book Review

Getting in on the act

Although it could use more insight and fewer anecdotes, Secrets of the Sideshows is an entertaining read, written by someone who has been there.

By CARLO WOLFF
Published September 29, 2005

Secrets of the Sideshows, By Joe Nickell

As much a debunking as a celebration, Secrets of the Sideshows explores a rapidly vanishing segment of American entertainment. Author Joe Nickell knows whereof he speaks: Not only is he a former professional stage magician, he also has worked as a carnival pitchman.

Nickell traces the sideshow from its origins in ancient Egypt to its current embodiment in such relics as the Sideshows by the Seashore in Coney Island. Street performers still surface, but not in midways. I saw a fire-eater recently in Dublin, Ireland, and I've seen contortionists perform on New York streets. Although there are vestiges of this dying culture, particularly in Florida, sideshows have largely vanished.

"Today, many of the sideshow dwarfs and midgets - like other attractions and showmen - winter in a place known to carnies as "Gibtown" - actually Gibsonton, Florida, population 5,000, located south of Tampa on Tampa Bay," Nickell writes. "The Gibsonton post office installed a special low counter to be used by the little people each winter." In the late '40s, Gibsonton was the site of a Giant's Tourist Camp, and Grady Stiles' family settled there (Stiles was a "lobster man" whose hands and feet lacked some digits and fused, producing "claws").

Secrets is well written and cleverly structured, leading us from the carnivals and circuses themselves into the acts. It isn't interpretive enough, however, and by the end, seems overly anecdotal. Nickell guides us through different kinds of performances, spanning the likes of girl shows, illusion shows, live shows and wax shows. He writes with affection, and his grasp of history seems solid. What's refreshing about this is Nickell's perspective on political correctness, which often bleaches out language and sensibility in the name of sensitivity:

Although he titles a key chapter "Human Oddities," Nickell says he's really talking about freaks, "the usual circus and carnival term." He profiles famous giants, fat people (one wonders how America's growing obesity would raise this bar) and "living skeletons" like Alexander Sparg, "who entertained by playing the violin. He measured just four inches through the chest, and his arms were reportedly only slightly more than an inch in diameter."

Nickell also expertly explains the lexicography of sideshows, including the "blowoff" (an act that clears the crowd), the "gaff" (the faking of an act) and the difference between a "working act" involving an "anatomical wonder" and the plain "human oddity." (The freakishness of a "working act" becomes clear only when it's demonstrated.)

I admire Nickell for his connections - he's certainly one of the most networked authorities on the sideshow - and the warmth of his writing. I also respect his commitment to his subject: He learned how to walk a bed of nails and how to swallow fire as part of his research. But I would have liked more conversations with the few remaining sideshow performers and greater insight into their psychology. For that, see Tod Browning's eerie, oddball Freaks. That 1932 film remains timeless, and at least as insightful as this book.

- "Secrets of the Sideshows," by Joe Nickell, University of Kentucky Press, $32.95, 401 pages.

Reviewer Carlo Wolff is a freelance writer from Cleveland.

[Last modified September 28, 2005, 08:38:02]