Nights at the Circus

The protagonist of this novel is "a six-foot-two-inch woman aerialist with wings. The setting is turn of the century London, St. Petersburg, and Siberia. An American journalist, Jack Walser, has been sent to interview Sophia, known as Fevvers to her friends, and is so intrigued by her account of her childhood that he joins the circus as a clown. Then begin the . . . 'nights at the circus,' with a train derailment in Siberia, where Walser starts his apprenticeship as a shaman." (Libr J)