Book currents; three rings.(Brief Article)

David Carlyon begins his biography DAN RICE: THE MOST FAMOUS MAN YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF (PublicAffairs) with excruciating recollections of how he himself endured repeated failures as an aspiring clown before gradually learning how to read an audience. Rice, on the other hand, started penniless as a teen-ager in an act with an ostensibly gifted pig but quickly honed his skills as a strongman, horseback rider, and motormouth clown and became one of the most famous Americans of the mid-nineteenth century. Ever the crowd-pleaser, he was vehemently Unionist in the North and vehemently anti-abolitionist in the South. He even ran for President but pulled out of the race when the press and public began to question his platform.

In WOMEN OF ILLUSION: A CIRCUS FAMILY'S STORY (Palgrave), Donnalee Frega interviews Betty Huber, an elderly former acrobat, and learns ...