Under the Big Top

Sawdust, greasepaint, and flying trapezes: step inside a traveling three-ring big top as writer Bruce Feiler runs away to become a clown.

Both a great American adventure and a rare entry into asheltered world, Under the Big Top describes one man's pursuit of every child's fantasy: running away to join the circus.

Feiler embeds himself directly inside this itinerant subculture, chronicling five hundred performances alongside two hundred cast and crew members while confronting the grueling labor behind the spectacle.

The narrative moves from high-wire rigging to a twenty-three-foot Winnebago, capturing a tight-knit community of aerialists, animal trainers, and roustabouts weathering runaway tigers, sixty-foot center poles, and slapstick gags in Clown Alley.

Bruce Feiler's unforgettable year as a clown will forever change your view of one of the world's oldest art forms and remind you of how dreams can go horribly wrong -- and then miraculously come true.

• Cultural History: Discover how nineteenth-century traditions endure on the road, from Joshua Brown’s 1825 canvas big top and P. T. Barnum’s three-ring innovations to the modern mechanics of moving a 3,000-person tent across sixteen states.
• Microhistory: Explore the physics, veterinary challenges, and backstage mechanics of the show, from an emergency surgery on a 5,500-pound elephant.
• Raw Honesty: Encounter the tight-knit international subculture behind the curtain, where performers from thirteen countries navigate generational tensions, covert romances, and an underground lot economy driven by side hustles known as cherry pie.
• Biographies and Memoirs: Trace the unforgettable lives of circus figures like Elvin Bale, the paralyzed former Human Cannonball turned talent manager, and Josip Marcan, the Croatian tiger trainer who bred rare ligers for the center ring.