I used to think of The Island Circus as one novel.
I still do, for the most part, but after I finally finished this novel—the overall process was more than six years—it felt like two novels, one a very unusual sequel to the first. I’ll talk about them both, as they had fairly different composition processes and histories.
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In my previous entry, which discussed my second novel Magic Spiders, I said I was a “pantser” for my first few books. The first Island Circus novel, subtitled Revival Theater Thunderdome, is the most successful of these efforts, and to be honest, I have very little idea where most of this novel came from. Oh, I remember where I got the basic idea: I was on a walk with a friend in Georgetown, and I thought I saw a letter addressed to me sitting on a doorstep.
But that can’t begin to capture the bonkers output that produced these two novels, both of which remain unpublished, though I’ve made some efforts to place them traditionally.
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No kidding, I initially started writing The Island Circus as a novel-within-a-novel in Magic Spiders. I was really leaning into the John Irvingness of that other book’s lead character—and then The Island Circus took over my fucking life.
Unlike the first two novels in this series of blog entries, I’ve not re-read the Island Circus books in awhile, so I’ll be working from a more general memory. Looking back at them, it’s clear I had the work of David Lynch—in particular Twin Peaks—lingering in my fatty tissue, and it reasserted itself in a long tale about three good-hearted but troubled souls whose lives intersect at two key moments in two locations, one in East Tennesse, one in western North Carolina.
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The three lead characters are:
Oda McGaw. Yes, that’s his name. I originally thought of the name while saying “Oh my god” to myself in an exaggerated, silly voice. (I do that a lot. Don’t ask.) Oda’s the apotheosis of the “fast talking good ole boy” archetype I first explored with Cody Rayder in Magic Spiders. He’s an old-fashioned, east Tennessee sonofabitch who starts the novel deeply flawed, mean-spirited and bigoted—but also charming as hell.
Beverly Thundercracker. Another in a long line of physically hulking, fiery female leads, Bev is also a conduit for my own feelings of body dismorphia and struggles with eating disorders. In saying that, I want to pause, be mindful, and emphasize that these problems aren’t that bad for me in the grand scheme of things, and even though they’ve presented some challenges, legions of folks have it worse than I do. That said, I’ve explored these themes through a lot of characters across my books. (Strangely, I think my most successful vehicle for these neuroses is the completely batshit Order of the Narsyan in my sci-fi novel The Odds, but I’ll discuss them in a future entry.)
Johnny Major, a local cop who abandons his job to get wrapped up with Oda and Bev’s magical adventures. Remember the mysterious letter I thought I saw in Georgetown? That acts as the book’s inciting event. Oda’s wandering the country trying to bed as many women as he can when he spots the letter. Johnny’s working as a local cop, and for various reasons, ditches his job to give Oda a ride to East Tennessee so he can deliver the letter.
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As I’ve written more novels, I’ve tried out new methods and structures. My default setting is third-person limited omniscient. I’ve always found first person intimidating, but with this novel, I thought I’d try it out. Revival Theater Thunderdome alternates between first- and third-person with the following pattern:
Basic setup:
Several years before Oda discovers the letter in Georgetown, he and Beverly had an adventure in the mountains of western North Carolina. They fell in love, but Oda abandoned her at the altar.
Oda’s storyline, written in first person:
Oda and Johnny drive back to east Tennessee to deliver the mysterious letter. On his way out of town, he bumps into Beverly, who still wants to kick his ass for abandoning her at the altar.
Oda narrates his half of the North Carolina adventure to Johnny.
Bev’s storyline, written in third person:
Beverly follows Oda back to east Tennessee, flashing back to her part of the North Carolina adventure in third person.
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The North Carolina adventure: a “Texas Detour”
I love playing in different sandboxes. Years later, in my novel Strong Bones, I’d play in a sandbox defined by previous works such as The Goonies, Stand By Me, Stranger Things, Monster Squad, IT, and many other memorable works that fall into a pseudogenre I like to call “kids on bikes.”
Another such sandbox is a grindhouse tradition known casually as the “Texas Detour.” There’s actually a movie with that title, but the basic structure is: one or more hapless people get waylaid in a small town, usually by corrupt local law enforcement. The apogee of the form might be First Blood, and it can even sustain other genres; I’d argue Doc Hollywood is a rom-com riff on the form.
In Revival Theater Thunderdome, the setting is a fictional small town in western North Carolina, Chimney Top, which I situate somewhere “to the north” of Cherokee. There, the local sheriff has repurposed an old revival theater into her own personal thunderdome, where he pits criminals against each other in deathmatches.
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Note: A revival theater is a largely southern curiosity where they used to stage recreations of the so-called “passion play,” which depicted the last days of Jesus Christ.
The local law who claims this theater is maybe my best villain ever, Beau Bryant. My characterization for Beau was inspired by that old acting trick to “play the opposite.” He’s relentlessly, creepily polite, constantly smiling and cheerful. He strands both Oda and Bev in town, forcing Oda to work behind the scenes at the thunderdome, which he calls his “Cock Ring.” (The original subtitle for this novel was Beau Bryant’s Cock Ring, but a friend rightfully cautioned that such a title might be too provocative. It still makes me laugh.)
Later in the book, Beau brings Beverly back to his place, having left Oda with one of his henchmen, a guy named Lester. This leads into one of my favorite sequences:
“Right, Bev said. “So what is Lester going to do to Oda?”
“Indeed,” Beau said, hunching over the steering wheel and lowering his voice into a campfire-conspiratorial whisper. “What is Lester going to do to Odamcgaw?” He ran Oda’s name into two syllables, laughing. “What a good question, Bev. You ask good questions. You should teach a class on question-asking.”
Bev continued to rub her head as she watched the road. The trail narrowed until it disappeared, allowing the trees to squeeze the truck in a pocket of humid July night air. Sound filled the forest: cicadas, crickets, birds — Bev even thought she heard a bobcat roar. The trees were black pillars all around them, aglow in dim silhouette from the truck’s headlights, which shot two dusty cones of yellow light ahead. Beau wove through the trees, bouncing on his seat and holding his smokey cap secure with one hand.
“You should teach a class on question-asking” still cracks me up, and I’ve always liked the descriptive writing in these books.
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Earlier, I said I “pantsed” this book. The scene above, where Beau drives Bev back to his place, is a classic “pantsing” scene, given that if I were outlining this project, I would almost certainly have cut this scene. One of my rules of thumb for storytelling is to—as often as possible—only show people leaving and arriving; don’t show people traveling to places. And yet, this scene includes some of my favorite dialogue and imagery I’ve ever written.
Don’t worry. I’ll always be a “planner,” but I think it’s important to keep that “pantsting” part of your creative brain alive, which I most certainly have over the years.
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This novel’s action unfolds over a few weeks in the “North Carolina” timeframe and several hours in the “present” timeframe. We slowly learn that Oda and Bev, caught in impossible circumstances, fall in love and conspire to destroy the Cock Ring. They do, though we don’t see how; I make a few cryptic references to the event—we know that they blow it up somehow, killing Bryant and his underlings in the process.
Or so they think.
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Near this book’s end, Beverly arrives at a small chapel located inside a reservation casino. A portly, cheerful, animated woman named Marla Sue runs the joint. Beverly’s joined by another major character, a physician named Trick Maxwell, who Beau had also waylaid in the smokies. As she’s waiting for Oda to come marry her, they all hear a ruckus out in the casino. Gunfire erupts, flash-deafening everyone and leading to this moment:
In the mandatory slow-motion haze that followed, the batty, decorated general in Bev’s mind who handled tactical situations — Bev liked to call him General Anarchy — instantly told her that she was Lester’s primary target.
The boy yelled “Beau Bryant” and “sin,” miss Commander-in-chief! Take evasive action!
But before Bev could move, Trick and Lester fired as one, their reports distant thunder. Trick’s back slammed against the wall, a red cloud around his chest. Lester’s shoulder spat blood. He shook off the pain and ran down the aisle at her. General Anarchy quipped, Speak now or forever hold your peace! Lester raised the revolver. Bev felt her buttocks flex. Another distant thunderclap, and one hinge of Lester’s jaw exploded in a rose of blood. His jaw dangled by a few strands of gristle, and then another red and gray flare dislodged the other hinge. He tripped over his own mandible and stopped his fall by grabbing Bev’s dress. She looked in his gogging eyes and screeched. Lester’s throat tried to make sounds but couldn’t, his naked tongue squirming under his gums like a spastic slug. His groping hands left streaks of red and gray on her pretty little wedding dress.
A final thunderclap, and a red hole opened in the middle of Lester’s forehead and sprayed red spots all over Bev’s dress. Lester slid down her body to the ground.
It’s revealed that although Trick lands the killshot on Lester, the chapel’s proprietor, Marla Sue, was also armed and managed to blow off his jaw. When Beverly asks why she keeps a gun in her chapel, Marla Sue says simply: “Affairs of the heart.”
That’s another line that’s always made me smile. I wrote this whole sequence incredibly fast, and I didn’t sit and ruminate over Marla Sue’s response—it just leapt out of me.
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Looking back at Revival Theater Thunderdome, I’m still struck at how well it holds together, though on the downside, its structure isn’t as complex as it seems. There’s only one location—the Cock Ring and the woods surrounding it—and any time I needed to put my characters in danger, I could always just have someone jump out of the woods.
But the relationship between Oda and Beverly is, I think, a vibrant one … but I’ll talk more about them in my next entry, which will discuss this book’s sequel (or second half, depending), Cougar Clinkscales’ Island Circus.
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Anything I would say about Hurricane Helene would be trite. If you can, please donate to the relief efforts.
https://clce.ecu.edu/hurricane-relief-efforts/
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response
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Thank you for reading. Lots of love.
Robert J. Peterson, Author 