Critiques en avant-première

On the eve of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, isn’t sure quite what the fair will bring. Certainly there will be work for him plying his act and a cheap magic tricks among the carnival rides, hucksters, pickpockets, and exotic dancers on the Midway, but its hard to believe anything majestic could happen in Omaha. Omaha still has the marks of its birth as a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago, which two year earlier had gained fame for its own World’s Fair with the renowned White City. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his whole purpose changes and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair. One of a traveling troupe of actors that have descended on the city, Cecily is working as an actress in the Midway’s Chamber of Horrors where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off clinging protectively to a carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. Finally, he convinces her to take a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, and the Fair’s magic begins to take its effect. But a rival emerges in the form of the richest man in town, Billy Wakefield, the patron of the fair, who is determined to steal Cecily away. And when Cecily apparently succumbs to the pressures of his advances—a new hope emerges, one that requires a leap of faith from the former cynic Ferret. From the critically acclaimed author of The Coffins of Little Hope, The Swan Gondola is a transporting read, reminiscent of Water for Elephants or The Night Circus.