The World of Carnival — Gladys Swan

In this chapbook, you will find the first chapters of Carnival for the Gods, and the four novels that form a sequence from Gladys Swan's comic fantasy, first published in the Vintage Contemporaries Series. The World of Carnival continues with its original inhabitants and their struggles against the odds: Alta and Dusty, who dream big; the midget Curran, who undertakes a journey at the behest of the acrobat Elise, whose son has gone mad (Small Wonder); Amazing Grace, whose talents as a performer bring gasps from her audience, lead her to the challenge of creating herself (Dancing with Snakes); the Kid, who, after a long search, sets out to find the Seventh City, picking up along the way a melancholy Jew, who grew up there (The Dream Seekers). And, finally, a return to Alta, who finds herself drawn back to the circus to follow another set of dreams (Down to Earth). The series of novels explores the relations between life and art, reality and illusion, the openness to possibility and the capacity for the renewal of energies within a culture. It is the writer's major work, and it is her dream that the sequence may one day be published.