"Put On A Happy Face" by Christopher Golden
This story comes from the collection "Tell M Sorrows To The Stones" written by Christopher Golden.
This
story was about a clown named Benny. He had always wanted to be a
clown. He was always the funny one growing up and always tried to make
people laugh. He grew up doing acts for his mother who thought he was
the funniest person alive. (What mother doesn't think their kid is the
best?)
When the Macintosh Traveling Circus Troupe came to town in Corriveau, Vermont, Benny
went every day without fail. After the circus he would go and talk to
the clowns. Eventually they invited to the backstage to hang out after
the show. After hanging out with
clowns for a few days he asked them to take him on for an
apprenticeship. Soon he had word from the circus manager that they
would accept him and put him on probation.
He earned a spot in the troupe, but was always the low
man on the totem pole. He didn't get nearly the laughs that a couple
of the other clowns received. Nothing he did could improve his comedy
enough to gain any notoriety.
There just didn't seem to be anything left to do accept that he would
never amount to anything he dreamed of or quit the troupe.
One
day Benny is walking around the circus grounds and stumbles upon an old
bus. The bus had been repurposed and turned into a bookstore. Going
inside the bus he met the owner of the bookstore and started up a
conversation. She said she had something for everyone and after looking
around he spotted a book he had to have and bought it after a short haggle.
The book was about Giovanni Tovolo a retired Italian clown. He
had to retire after an accident that claimed sixteen lives. The book
described how Tovolo was wanting more laughter during his shows and
always struggled
with anxiety about his own talents. Then one day another performer at
the circus taught him how to summon a spirit, the patron of clowns.
If
your into clowns, carnivals, or circuses, you'll like this story. This
was a carniepunk story at it's heart. Horror was more the wrapper of
the carniepunk. Picture an Oreo cookie: carniepunk would be the creamy
filling and the cookie would be the horror.
This
story is quite the show in all senses of the words. You get to see
what happens when shows go right and when they go wrong. How wrong can a
show go? That depends on what you do and what you want out of the
show.
The
characters were ok in this story. Not as developed as I would of
liked. The characters were a bit two dimensional. Benny being the most
fleshed out character, he was the main character after all. Even Benny
with all the backstory didn't seem to be that deep of a character.
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