Circle of Sawdust
Rob Mermin
North Street Book Prize 2024 (view all the winners)
First Prize, Creative Nonfiction
Critique by Jendi Reiter
When Rob Mermin was a teenager in the 1960s, his high school girlfriend's Italian grandpa shared a memory that had delighted him for 70 years: watching the clown routine at the traveling circus in his childhood village. Even as the old man succumbed to dementia, he could still describe the pratfalls of this anonymous performer. This belief in the sacred power of playfulness animates Mermin's book Circle of Sawdust: A Circus Memoir of Mud, Myth, Mirth, Mayhem, and Magic. In this rollicking autobiography, the founder of Vermont's Circus Smirkus makes good on his thesis that the most ephemeral or frivolous-seeming art forms can touch people's lives in extraordinary ways.
I can speak to the truth of this myself. After a personal tragedy that made me too dissociated to function for weeks, the first time I felt my brain return to my body was when watching a performance of Cirque de Soleil's Saltimbanco. The colorful, light-hearted clowning and acrobatics gave me something to focus on that was pure, safe, and grounded in the physical present tense.
Mermin's anecdotes from six decades in the circus are hilarious, poignant, and hair-raising. What makes this memoir resonate for me, however, is the model it provides for the artistic life, a deft balance of spontaneity and dedication that leaves no room for self-aggrandizement.
From the time that he and his skeptical friend ran off to Wales in 1969 in search of a circus to join, through training with world-famous mime Marcel Marceau and learning the clown trade in Copenhagen and Denmark, till establishing the Circus Smirkus school and performance troupe for teenagers in the 1980s, Mermin was always ready to seize an opportunity at a moment's notice and give it his full physical and mental commitment. Along the way, he was bitten on the rear (repeatedly) by a mule, marched in a royal parade, and broke his neck in a car accident...to name just a few of his escapades.
The author showed great respect for his dwarf co-workers (I get the sense that they would have preferred that appellation to "little people"). Some other aspects of his social awareness seemed a touch idealistic. Circus Smirkus' American/Soviet exchange program for young performers in the 1980s probably meant a lot to the participants, but Mermin perhaps overestimates the political effects of such cross-cultural exchanges. His anecdotes suggest that the animals were treated well in the European circuses where he worked, but there have been many news stories about abusive training and conditions in American shows. (Mermin tells us that in his experience, professional trainers in Europe respected their animals as the source of their livelihood, and mistreatment was rare.)
The print book was enhanced with delightful pen-and-ink sketches by Karen E. Gersch and numerous photos of circus posters and fellow performers from Mermin's travels. The proofreading could have been better. There were occasional kerning problems and inconsistently spelled names. Mermin informs us that a new edition is coming that addresses these issues.
Circle of Sawdust focuses on the author's early life as a clown in European circuses. This former Dean of Clown College (yes, that's a real thing) has written other books about Circus Smirkus for fans of the Big Top to enjoy.
Read an excerpt from Circle of Sawdust (PDF)
Buy this book on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
