The Circus in Winter

In Cathy Day’s debut short story collection, The Circus in Winter (2004), the stories revolve around the inhabitants of Lima, Indiana as they interact with the Great Porter Circus. The circus workers use Lima as their off-season base; Day’s narratives flesh out three generations of interactions between the two groups. Descending from a circus elephant trainer and a ticket-taker, Day mixes family history with meticulous research to render the dazzling—and heartbreaking—world of circus life, thus adding authenticity to her tales. The Circus in Winter addresses themes of family, loss, dreams, disillusionment, home, tragedy, and reconciliation.

Initially, Lima, Indiana seems like any other American town (Day likens it to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio). Set gender roles and a lackluster daily life define the town’s inhabitants. Yet, the annual arrival of the Great Porter Circus, which uses the town as an off-season locale from 1884 to 1939, adds interest to the town, giving purpose to its inhabitants. Kirkus Reviews sums up the circus folk who arrive as “immigrants, misfits, dwarves, and former slaves reinvented as African royalty, they incarnate the intoxicating possibilities of freedom and pleasure beyond the edge of town, even though their lives are scarred by loss, disappointment, and tragedy.”

The first story fleshes out the beginnings of the circus. Wallace Porter finds solace in the circus that bears his name after the death of his wife. The second story, “Jennie Dixianna,” tells the story of a circus performer known for a death-defying act called Spin of Death. Jennie has a visible wound from a performance that went wrong, and she wears the wound with pride. She attempts to make Porter fall in love with her. Other stories include a former slave-turned-circus pinhead who pretends to be African royalty; death, mishaps, and illness (including cancer, the son of a trainer killed by an elephant, and a devastating flood); and the end of the circus when it shuts down in the twentieth century.



The second half of The Circus in Winter deals with the descendants of the circus and retired circus performers when the circus closes. Instead of becoming clowns, pinheads, and acrobats, these descendants and former circus actors take on jobs cleaning clothes, working in banks, and working for the railroad.

Though the circus has disbanded, moments of fascination and majesty arise in unlikely places. In “The Bullhook,” for instance, Ollie, a former clown, lives out his days with his unloving wife while waiting to die. He keeps his father’s bullhook with him, hence the name of the story, and works at Clown Alley Cleaners. In “The King and His Court,” former circus performer Laura Hofstadter reflects bitterly on the unwanted pregnancy that ended her career, while “The Circus People” highlights the reflections of Ollie’s granddaughter and Laura’s daughter, Jenny, who comically refers to her peers in academia as a circus family. Though Jenny moves from place to place, thus connecting her thematically to the transient circus folk of old, she returns home for Ollie’s funeral. When she does, she realizes that it is, in fact, possible to return to places that initially held no appeal. Her return to Lima signifies the possibility to return to one’s hometown, underscoring just how similar we all are to circus people. Humans are drawn to adventure and purpose, which often takes people to distant destinations. Despite leaving home, however, we can always go back, even if the return is solely through memories.