In her astonishing debut, Cathy Day follows the everyday lives of the people of the Great Porter Circus, as they make the unlikely choice to winter in the town of Lima, Indiana, a place that feels as classic to readers as Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio."
From 1884 to 1939, the Great Porter Circus makes the unlikely choice to winter in an Indiana town called Lima, a place that feels as classic as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and as wondrous as a first trip to the Big Top. In Lima an elephant can change the course of a man's life-or the manner of his death. Jennie Dixianna entices men with her dazzling Spin of Death and keeps them in line with secrets locked in a cedar box. The lonely wife of the show's manager has each room of her house painted like a sideshow banner, indulging her desperate passion for a young painter. And a former clown seeks consolation from his loveless marriage in his post-circus job at Clown Alley Cleaners.

In her astonishing debut, Cathy Day follows the circus people into their everyday lives, bringing the greatest show on earth to the page.