“This is a very fine novel. Though the characters are often given comic scenes to play out, the writing never holds them up to ridicule. They are all fully realized and fully human, even in their quarrels—Bram writes exceptionally good quarrels—and that itself is a great and moving accomplishment. His ear for dialogue is pitch-perfect, and he manages contemporary gay-straight gender politics as well as or better than anyone else. I loved it.”
—Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love
“Bram gives us characters to love for their humanity and vulnerability from the outset of a sweetly funny and engaging novel that makes the contemporary New York theater scene spring to life in an imaginative unfolding of the interrelationships of fascinating, often eccentric, always less-than-perfect people being themselves.”
—Booklist
ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER BRAM
The Notorious Dr. August
Gossip
Father of Frankenstein
Almost History
In Memory of Angel Clare
Hold Tight
Surprising Myself
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
“Cotton Blossom,” words and music by Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, copyright © 1927 Universal-Polygram Int. Publ. Inc. on behalf of T. B. Harms Co.
(ASCAP). International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
“Some Other Time,” words and music by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, copyright © 1944. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
“The Circus Animals’ Desertion” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume 1: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran.
Copyright © 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright © renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats.
LIVES OF THE CIRCUS ANIMALS. Copyright © 2003 by Christopher Bram.. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2006 ISBN: 9780061856525
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Bram, Christopher.
Lives of the circus animals: a novel / Christopher Bram.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-06-054253-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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