Maud’s Circus
At age 16, Maud Stevens slips away from her Kansas home and an abusive family member to join the Great Barlow Show in 1893. After learning acrobatics and contortions, she becomes a regular performer on the circuit. But her love of art and skill in drawing lead her to tattooing. Teaming with and later marrying Gus Wagner, Maud not only displays elaborate hand-inked designs on her body, she skillfully draws them. Over the next 50-plus years, she applies tattoos to circus-goers who need to disguise or eliminate a physical scar, heal an emotional wound, reveal a hidden personality, remove a stigma, or recognize and revere a loss.
Maud’s Circus is based on the life of Maud Wagner, the first known female tattooist in North America. As author Rene points out, many incidents are facts, including Maud’s and Gus’s meeting at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904 and Gus’s death by lightning strike in 1949. Rene also presents factual details about circuses and tattooing, noting Victorians’ fascination with tattoos and the use of Native American symbols in their designs.
The novel centers on relationships: the family Maud develops with her circus friends Dora and Walter, her marriage and daughter Lovetta who also becomes a circus performer. Characters are complex and multi-faceted. The storyline traverses the country much like circus trains moved across the country from the fields of the Midwest to the streets of San Francisco and leads readers through landmarks of history: Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the beginning of World War II, and the aftermath.
Maud’s Circus is moving and insightful. It is finely etched and beautifully drawn.
