The Trapeze Artist
by Will Davis
Bloomsbury USA. 320 pages, $16.
A MAN who is never named—as if he’s invisible or not worthy of a name—is the protagonist of this somber, almost depressing novel by Will Davis, author of the award-winning novel, My Side of the Story (2007). This nameless man finds himself living in a house that is physically empty, having been emotionally empty for a very long time. While there’s some confusion in the timeline, it is eventually understood that this aloneness (and the subsequent scandal that he initiates) comes after he sees a circus act and falls head over heels for its aerialist. At that point he impulsively follows the circus.
The aerialist, a needy, overly dramatic little man named Vlad, blithely sleeps with the man, who promptly calls his mother to tell her he’ll be gone for awhile, then shuts off his phone in the middle of her protestations. At this time he remembers that he had decided at age six to be gay because his Uncle Dan was gay, and the ebullient Dan enjoyed life. He remembers how his parents were boring and chilly, and how they refused to acknowledge his gayness, just as they had refused to acknowledge him. He often imagined what it would be like to live like his friend Edward, whose parents were famous and quite bohemian. Edward was the first gay boy the man had ever known, and the first boy he’d ever kissed. Though his friendship with Edward had appalled the adults in their town, he could still barely acknowledge that he was in love with Edward when they were boys. While he hints at some sort of tragedy, he also understands that it hurts to think about Edward, who has obviously been absent for quite some time.
So the man leaves his dull life and follows the circus on a whim, but stays because of Vlad, who is alternately abusive and loving. He stays, despite the fact that none of the other performers, the circus owner, or the workers seem to like him. And yet, the man realizes that he’s never been happier—until things fall apart.
The Trapeze Artist is a beautifully pensive book. The unnamed main character is a conundrum: complicated yet bland; badly damaged but not exactly worthy of sympathy; smart but annoyingly impulsive. His thoughts and actions, as secretive and methodical as they are, serve both to slow this story and to pull the reader along. As the novel proceeds and this character is piled with more and more grief, it’s altogether easy to grow morose along with the plot. Yes, there’s a lot of lush prose in The Trapeze Artist, and a stunning ending that astute readers may be able to prognosticate if they’re paying attention, but there’s also a lot of confusion, both in the timeline—which bounces like a ping-pong ball in a tornado—and by the overuse of the masculine pronoun that comes with an unnamed main character and a novel filled nearly completely with an all-male cast.
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Terri Schlichenmeyer is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin.
