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First Fiction Fridays: Welcome to the Circus by Rhonda Douglas
The stories in Welcome to the Circus exemplify the form. They are versatile and compelling, and while the subject matter is wide-ranging, each one speaks to the deepest part our being. They may not be long, but they open up entire worlds. If you don’t tend to read short fiction, Welcome to the Circus is the place to start. If you do, this book is not to be missed!
(Freehand Books, 2015)
Who:
Rhonda Douglas has previously published a book of poetry, Some Days I Think I Know Things: The Cassandra Poems (Signature Editions, 2008). Her writing has won multiple awards. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the UBC. Originally from Newfoundland, Rhonda now lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Find her on twitter @shallicompare.
Why you need to read this now:
Short stories are too often overshadowed by the novel. But they can provide some of the most innovative and potent prose you could ever hope for. In the article “The State of the Canadian Short Story in 2015” from 49th Shelf, author Megan Cole writes: “The short story is limitless. Tight and expansive in the same breath, generous and ruthless in the same beat.”
The stories in Welcome to the Circus exemplify the form. They are versatile and compelling, and while the subject matter is wide-ranging, each one speaks to the deepest part our being. They may not be long, but they open up entire worlds. If you don’t tend to read short fiction, Welcome to the Circus is the place to start. If you do, this book is not to be missed!
Exploring love and escape, the ten stories in this collection will hit you from every angle. They will expand your psyche, tickle your emotions, and provoke your imagination. They may unsettle you, but they will also leave you with a feeling of completion.
In this collection, Rhonda Douglas shows off her impressive ability to capture something universal in each of her characters, whether they are members of a choir who have to deal with the illness and death of one of their altos; a paleontologist who unwittingly falls in love with a living Neandertal; a woman who is doing her best to save the family business—a brothel—from anti-porn activists; or God, who feels a need to explain the collapse of the cod fishery.
What other people are saying about Welcome to the Circus:
“Welcome to the Circus does what great short story collections do: just when you think you’re safe, caught in the ebb and flow of strong narrative, the stories surprise you with a shift of the bare and the raw, each with those flashes of insight that are most akin to the spotlit reveal of nakedness. It is the best thing you can say about any collection: they may be stories, but they read like truth.” —Russell Wangersky
* * *Thank you to Freehand Books, especially Anna Boyar, for sharing Welcome to the Circus with us!
