Carol Birch

Orphans of the Carnival

Daryl Houston

The history behind the story is horrifying and fascinating but the story as given here rang very very hollow. It's a dramatization of roughly historical happenings but it really mostly lacked real drama or feeling. The more modern story interleaved with the older one was very spare and kind of puzzling. I'm no snob (anymore) about historical fiction. I've read a couple of Mary Doria Russell's books in the last year or two, for example, and by contrast, they feel both well researched and put me more immediately into the lives of the characters. This book is small town community theater to Russell's Broadway.

Orphans of the Carnival

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