Another Night at the Circus - Rose Hunter (YB)

Another Night at the Circus is a collection of linked short stories that chart the varying fortunes of Alex: hooker, stripper, and massage parlour worker. Making her way through a mix of tragic and comic situations, Alex seeks to keep the emotional impact at bay via a steady diet of drugs, alcohol, and ironic detachment. Along the way she encounters crazed johns, sadistic pimps and brothel owners and cruel coworkers, as well as people who, like her, are just trying - and failing - to connect.

"Rose, as one can easily determine from her webblog, is a poet; a poet with a contemporary and very hard feminine voice. The voice of Another Night at the Circus, Alex, narrates in the poetry of the street, the poetic sensation of night in dirty places, the degradation poetry of the sex trade; a unique voice that I wish were expanded. My complaint about Circus is a compliment: It is too short, there is not enough; after each scene I wanted it to go on, to find out more, what happened next?, is Annika all right?, why is Alex doing this?, why does she let these slobs use her like a tissue?" - Donigan Merritt

Rose Hunter is from Australia originally, lived in Canada for many years, and now lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She blogs at Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home. She is also the editor of the online poetry journal YB, which is currently accepting submissions for its third (June 2010) edition. Guidelines here.

Another Night at the Circus
interlinked short stories
140 pages, $12
ISBN 9781451553819