A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
When Duncan Wall visited his first nouveau cirque as a college student in Paris, everything about it—the monochromatic costumes, the acrobats singing Simon and Garfunkel, the juggler reciting Proust—hooked him. Soon he was attending circuses two or three nights a week, and soon after that, he entered the intensively competitive training program at France’s École Nationale des Arts du Cirque. The Ordinary Acrobat is a magical, funny, sometimes scary story of what happens when one average American joins a host of gifted—and flexible—international students in a rigorous regimen of tumbling, trapeze, juggling, and clowning. Brimming with surprises, outsized personalities, and plenty of charm, this personal history of how the circus evolved into the thrilling experience it is today delivers all the excitement and pleasure of the circus ring itself.
- ISBN10 0307962296
- ISBN13 9780307962294
- Publish Date 26 February 2013
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Vintage Books
- Format eBook
- Pages 336
- Language English