The Invisible Circus

by Jennifer Egan

The high ideals and inevitable compromises of the 1960s form the background to this acclaimed first novel. Phoebe O'Connor, eighteen years old in the summer of 1978, is too young to have known the sixties, but old enough to wistfully long for what is now past. Living in San Francisco with her mother, Phoebe has always been obsessed by the memory of her charismatic older sister, Faith, a passionate flower child who died in Italy in 1970. Searching for the truth about her death and life, Phoebe impulsively follows Faith's trail from San Francisco through Europe, culminating in the very place where she leapt to her death. The truth that Phoebe discovers on her journey is larger and darker than one death, going straight to the ambiguous heart of a generation that tried to follow its dreams of freedom.

`Egan writes well about her chosen period, conveying its atmosphere of self-conscious decadence with unerring accuracy' The Times

`A trip that takes the reader through stunning emotional terrain' New Yorker

`A real page turner. Dramatic, suspenseful and beautifully written' Robert Stone

• ISBN10: 0330335103
• ISBN13: 9780330335102
• Publish Date: 23 June 1995 (first published 1 December 1994)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 14 March 1996
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Picador
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 338
• Language: English

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

All of the quotes on the front and back cover promised this would be a "brilliant," "mesmerizing," and "emotional" book about an 18-year-old who backpacks across Europe tracing her dead older sister's path to the place in Italy where she committed suicide.

Instead, I found it dull, predictable, and irritating. The main character, Phoebe, is woefully naive to the point where I had absolutely no sympathy for her. I wanted to smack her and yell at her to grow up. The plot twist at the beginning Part 3 is practically expected, but the execution is too coincidental to be anything except poor writing, especially when it easily could have been made more plausible. The plot twist in the end was something I saw coming from the very beginning of the book. The romance that occupies the last 1/3 of the book is just awkward and ill-explained.

Probably not even a book I would have read if I hadn't enjoyed the author's [b: The Keep|33724|Can You Keep a Secret?|Sophie Kinsella|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330464293s/33724.jpg|2888997], I should have trusted my instincts here.