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Dear Reader,
I'm on vacation this week and author Erika Raskin is filling in for me today. Please say hello to her and she comes to the book club bearing gifts. Erika is giving away copies of her book, Best Intentions. Her email contact is at the end of today's column.
Erika writes:
I think I know why the circus closed. I'm not a hundred percent but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the clowns.
At the risk of offending a whole group of professional performers (as well as those who merely paint on disingenuous smiley faces recreationally), I can think of few things more terrifying than adults who go about in public camouflaging their real expressions. Perma-grins and fixed grimaces (nothing more uplifting than somebody else's sadness!) as a form of entertainment just isn't.
Lots of people are freaked out by clowns. Kids in particular. I don't know if this branch of mimes comprises the top juvenile fear (who are the white-coated degenerates running that experiment?) but they definitely rank right up there.
Children (like everybody else) study faces for important social clues. So withholding that type of communication is not only confusing, it's downright sadistic. Because even the most fleeting of emotions skittering across somebody's features can serve as a way to raise the alarm, the point of frozen expressions can only mean one thing: sneak-attacks.
In my years mothering a child with a chronic medical condition, I've regularly seen clowns roaming the halls of pediatric wards. To which I ask--why not hand out Jason masks and orthopedic saws at the visitors' desk? (And along the same lines, who decided that having clowns perform at birthday parties was a good idea? You might as well fill the goodie bags with chicken pox and wormy chocolate.)
The first time my youngest encountered a clown in real life, the earth tilted.
Coulrophobia (dread of bizarre individuals with rictus grins and pancake make-up) is clearly a genetic thing. I'm pretty sure I had my first panic attack at the circus when a Volkswagen rolled to a stop in front of my seat and disgorged an unending chain of brightly colored, paint-smeared faced monsters. I was six. While Barnum and Bailey's is no more, I still worry about where that VW is parked.
Interestingly, some inverse corollary has probably propelled one of my brothers to collect clown "art." He keeps the horrifying paintings, puppets and statuary in his house. Recently, one of his grotesque ceramics found its way into the bottom of my purse at a family reunion. When I went to withdraw my car keys, my baffled fingers pulled out the smooth object. I screamed in the parking lot then texted him a picture of the freakish thing. Beneath my tire.
Another time the same brother and I were walking down the street when a trio of orange-wigged miscreants rounded the corner. My heart froze in my throat when he called them over. As if it had been prearranged (and knowing him, it might well have been) they complied. Sensing my terror they of course came in for a group hug. I took off.
But now that the circus has closed down, I'm a little concerned that there might be even more of them wandering around unattended.
--Erika Raskin
Please email me with your opinion of clowns and you'll be entered in my drawing for a copy of Best Intentions, [email protected].
More About Today's Guest Author: Erika Raskin's debut novel, Close, was nominated for a Teen Choice Book of the Year award. Her work has appeared on public radio and publications including The Washington Post, Salon, and Washingtonian Magazine. She was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a panelist at the Virginia Festival of the Book. She's a mother of three, a politician's daughter, and wife to a successful doctor, just like the main character in her new novel, Best Intentions.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
On Vacation,
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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THE REGULARS (Fiction) by Georgia Clark
If you were given a potion that would turn you jaw-droppingly beautiful for just one week: would you take it? Best friends Evie, Krista and Willow do, and the results are hilarious, sexy, and entirely irregular. Set in New York, my first contemporary fiction novel delves into the allure, the myth, and the truth about beauty. I invite you to answer the question: what would you sacrifice to be pretty?
Go to AUTHORBUZZ click on THE REGULARS to read more and to email author Georgia Clark, you'll get a reply.
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