MADreads

Photography, sideshows, and flea circuses

May 7th, 2008 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

When’s the last time you read a book about all three? 

A lot of people assume that people who read nonfiction only do so because they’re interested in the subject.  Well, a lot of times, that’s true.  But sometimes, you get lucky and chance across a book that isn’t about anything you’re truly interested in, and yet…and yet…it looks interesting.

This is what happened to me recently with Gregory Gibson’s Hubert’s Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus.  I think it originally caught my eye because of the words “book dealer” in the title, but it’s only tangentially about Bob Langmuir, the book dealer in question (who chanced upon a stack of rare and valuable photographs by Diane Arbus).  Just like it’s only tangentially about photographer Diane Arbus’s life and art, a man named Charlie Lucas who worked as a “talker” (front man) for a New York City sideshow, and that sideshow itself (complete with headlining flea circus act).  Each plotline on its own probably wouldn’t be enough to carry the narrative.

But taken together?  Wowza.  The best novel out there’s got nothing on this sweet, sweet nonfiction.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction