A CABINET OF WONDERS

Book ID/图书代码： 02330008B20855

English Summary/英文概要： When you open the cabinet of wonders, every individual you meet is an original, their uniqueness indelibly marked on their flesh. Molly and Faye are spirited teenagers—and conjoined twins. Saffron is the Wolf Girl, her female form covered head to toe in fur. Alex/Alexandra is a seductive hermaphrodite, irresistible to many.
To the rubes that pay good coin to see them, they are Freaks. To the other carnies—those who run the Ferris Wheel, the Girl Show, and more—they are the Starlight Carnival Royale’s most lucrative source of income, and sometimes, friends. To Shadrach the tattooed man of God who travels with them, they are evidence of the divine. For Dugan—scholar, showman, romantic, and dwarf—the cabinet of wonders is more than just a business, it’s his family and the center of his universe, and he’ll do everything he can to keep it together...despite the rifts that are appearing after three years on the road. Set in 1927, this marvelous debut novel confronts the spectacle of the Freak Show, then steps through the curtains and out the other side, taking the reader to a candid, complex and human space where they can know outsiders as intimates.
Dugan the dwarf runs a profitable freak show (sympathetically dubbed the Cabinet of Wonders) during the tail-end of the traveling carnival’s pre-Depression golden era in Dodd’s debut. Mistreated in the freak show he belonged to as a child, a grownup Dugan acts at once as a father and employer to his brood of Wonders: Molly and Faye, a pubescent pair of Siamese twins, have a doubly difficult adolescence; Saffron, the Wolf Girl of India, leaves Dugan’s love unrequited; and fat lady Baby Beatrice seeks the love her carousing husband, Jimmy, never gave her. As the show tours the country, Dugan struggles to maintain control over his menagerie, who begin to bristle under his authority.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 侏儒、連體嬰、陰陽人、長滿了毛髮的狼女、體重驚人的胖子、全身刺青者…這些被社會鄙夷的怪咖，肉體雖然殘障畸零，內心卻有著和平凡人一樣的靈魂與渴望。在歐美仍然盛行「怪胎秀」的廿年代，他們組成了一個類似馬戲團的巡迴表演團，一個城鎮接著一個城鎮，經年流浪漂泊，表面上看來是各自尋找愛與歸屬，事實上，他們自己早已成為一個牢不可破、溫暖的家庭單位，擁有外人難以窺其神秘奧妙的專屬小宇宙。(TT)

Awards/获奖情况：From Publishers Weekly
Dugan the dwarf runs a profitable freak show (sympathetically dubbed the Cabinet of Wonders) during the tail-end of the traveling carnival’s pre-Depression golden era in Dodd’s debut. Mistreated in the freak show he belonged to as a child, a grownup Dugan acts at once as a father and employer to his brood of Wonders: Molly and Faye, a pubescent pair of Siamese twins, have a doubly difficult adolescence; Saffron, the Wolf Girl of India, leaves Dugan’s love unrequited; and fat lady Baby Beatrice seeks the love her carousing husband, Jimmy, never gave her. As the show tours the country, Dugan struggles to maintain control over his menagerie, who begin to bristle under his authority. Dodd has a tendency toward overripe prose, particularly when describing her oddball characters ("[A]nd yet she ran on, her accreted rolls of flesh joggling under the powder pink ruffles of her costume, her strawberry blonde ringlets wilting, plastering themselves against the cherry flush of her baby-smooth forehead and cheeks"), and the smattering of first-person chapters from a grumpy hermaphrodite’s point of view obfuscate the narrative, which consists of run-ins with rubes (freak-show attendees), the unraveling of Dugan’s show and, most poignantly, the Wonders’ search for a certain, separate dignity.

From Kirkus Reviews
"...Dodd makes this strange world come alive. A capable performer in her own right, she juggles multiple plot lines. All the marvelous characters strive to accept their feelings about their unusual physical appearance and to find a home outside of the carnival. It’s impossible not to be charmed by this vividly drawn crew—their tough exteriors belie tender hearts... When it comes to representing carnival life, Dodd obviously did her research.
A rare treat: a diverting and insightful piece of quirky fiction."

About the Author/作者介绍： Born in Atlanta, my childhood was divided between urban and rural Georgia, so that I spent as much time drawing in the High Museum as I did hunting arrowheads in the pine woods of Elsberry Mountain. My grandfather was football hall of famer Coach Bobby Dodd— a big-hearted man and a wonderful storyteller. My family also includes two incredibly supportive parents, a fantastic sister, sister-in-law and niece; and a sprawling extended family on paternal and maternal sides that is just as wonderful (and interesting) as it is huge. My husband, Allen Gee, fits in with the whole crew, by which I mean to say, he’s terrific.
I earned my M.F.A. in Fiction Writing at the University of Houston, where I learned to toughen up, and revise, revise, revise. I currently live in Milledgeville, Georgia, where I sometimes teach creative writing at Georgia College & State University, or online with the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.
I would also like you to know that Renee is pronounced like “Renny.” To answer your questions in advance, it isn’t short for anything, that’s really how it’s spelled on my birth certificate, and my father just always liked the name (and so do I, Dad).
Speaking of Dad, take a look at the new website for my parents’ antique shop: Bobby Dodd Antiques.
RENEE DODD現居美國喬治亞州，她是該州最傑出的作家之一，今年甫以本書獲頒2008 Townsend Prize for Fiction. RENEE DODD是小說創作碩士，除了在大學教授文學創作，也在線上主持寫作工作坊。她以溫暖的心與筆，用文學形式關懷在歐美長期被當成娛樂工具的殘障表演者，完成了這部特殊的作品，散發缺憾與華麗並陳的奇異情調。

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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