American OZ: An Astonishing Year Inside Traveling Carnivals at State Fairs & Festivals: Hitchhiking From California to New York, Alaska to Mexico

Name: American OZ: An Astonishing Year Inside Traveling Carnivals at State Fairs & Festivals: Hitchhiking From California to New York, Alaska to Mexico
Brand: Findaway Voices
Availability: InStock
Author: Michael Sean Comerford
ISBN: 9781952693069

Author: Michael Sean Comerford

Narrator: Michael Sean Comerford

Unabridged: 10 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Comerford Publishing LLC

Published: 01/16/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Memoirs, Performing Arts

Synopsis

“MAJESTIC! ... DEEP OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE!” – CHICAGO TRIBUNE American OZ is a rollicking, gritty, adventurous year in the secretive subculture of traveling carnivals. You’ll never see your state fair or neighborhood festival the same again. It’s a new classic American road story! Comerford writes a bold, inspiring true story of a year working shoulder-to-shoulder with the colorful characters and legends of carnivals. Read stories of freaks, a carnival pimp, a tramp gold miner, and the last King of the Sideshows. An insult dunk tank clown is shot. Masked gunmen rob his carnival. And a young showman friend dies on the road. Hitchhike with him to shows in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, and Florida where he works in a freak show. He becomes the #1 hitchhiker in the USA. Travel to the lawless foothills of Mexico to a village that empties out of men each season as they head north to carnivals Explore issues of the American caste system, working poor, immigration, and the life force of collective joy. People seek love and meaning on the road. And we find the world runs on untold stories.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on October 16, 2020

This was one of those books that I hate to finish because I want more. I'm sure the author would point out that one of the main principles of show business is to always leave people wanting more, and he'd be right. There were times, however, when the stories felt incomplete. If I spend two chapters......more

Goodreads review by Steve on July 20, 2020

American Oz by Michael Sean Comerford American Oz is an evocative, unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime odyssey filled with countless larger-than-life characters, not least of whom is the author himself. Mike Comerford, intrepid adventurer, award-winning journalist, and inveterate, consummate, storytell......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on September 04, 2020

I'm quite proud to have edited this revealing, exciting story of a year spent meeting interesting everyday people hitchhiking and working traveling carnivals in numerous states and Mexico. Comerford has a gift for remembering details and telling tales that make readers feel like they are his privile......more

Goodreads review by Rmslis on April 15, 2023

In 2013, the author, a well travelled journalist in his fifties, decided for his latest writing project to spend a year hitch-hiking across North America - West Coast to East Coast, Alaska through Mexico and everything in between - to work in traveling carnivals. The project started out as a travel......more

Goodreads review by Ally on April 10, 2022

American Oz was a difficult book for me to read. It held the idea that the typical steady nine to five employment was a system, and the characters in the story had found an “out,” the carnival life. The story is written by Michael Sean Comerford and follows his journey as he hitchhikes across Ameri......more