{"product_id":"9780060542542","title":"Lives of the Circus Animals: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eCritically acclaimed novelist Christopher Bram has written some of his best work about life in the performing arts. In Father of Frankenstein, the basis for the Academy Award-winning movie \u003ci\u003eGods and Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e, it was Hollywood in the thirties and fifties. In \u003ci\u003eThe Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes\u003c\/i\u003e, it was the strange world of Victorian music and spiritualism. Now, in \u003ci\u003eLives of the Circus Animals\u003c\/i\u003e, Bram explores contemporary New York theater, spending several days and nights with a diverse handful of men and women.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is Caleb Doyle, a hot new playwright whose newest work, \u003ci\u003eChaos Theory\u003c\/i\u003e, has just bombed. His sister, Jessie, also loves theater but has no outlet for her talents except to work as the personal assistant to British actor Henry Lewse, \"the Hamlet of his generation,\" while he does a Broadway musical. Henry loves Shakespeare, money, grass, and boys.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen there's Frank Earp, an ex-actor who courts Jessie and is directing a troupe of acting students in a homemade play. Among the students is Toby Vogler, a nice kid from the Midwest who has a whole other career at night. Toby was once Caleb Doyle's boyfriend.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOverseeing this world like an unhappy god is Kenneth Prager, second-string theater critic for the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeaping from one life to another, one day to the next, the novel throws these people together in a serious comedy about love and work and make-believe. \u003ci\u003eLives of the Circus Animals\u003c\/i\u003e is a cross between a Mozart opera and a Preston Sturges movie. A look at theater people who are just like everyone else, only more so, it's a comic celebration of how we all strive to stay sane while living in the shadow of those two impostors, success and failure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47065031737584,"sku":"9780060542542","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780060542542_p0.jpg?v=1763619806","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780060542542","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}