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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In his memoir Kinker Circusing the Seventies, Dave Letterfly Knoderer describes growing up under his minister father’s authority, until a summer drummer’s job with a small circus gives him a different future to pursue. The book follows his attempt to make circus work permanent after that first season. Dave begins at the bandstand, then learns what a traveling show requires once the crowd has gone home. He is pulled into the work behind the ring until the circus stops being something he watches and becomes the trade he studies from the inside. The Letterfly name takes shape as Dave turns performance work into his chosen occupation, with each return to the road showing how far he will go to remain part of that world. This memoir traces a boyhood attachment becoming the work of a lifetime.
Dave Letterfly Knoderer’s Kinker Circusing the Seventies honors a young showman learning art through life on the road as craft. Knoderer makes the memoir extremely thoughtful by pairing heartening road loyalty with jarring social truth. Beth helping find Superdog before the jump shows fellowship, while the Georgia refusal to hire a young Black groom exposes cruelty. I admire Knoderer for turning skill into livelihood. He trains the palomino act under Bob Grubb until he can work the ring himself, then builds the Letterfly name through public sign painting jobs on midway lots. Readers gain a working education in portable craft, since the Volkswagen sign shop shows how art becomes income. They also learn humane animal practice through Bingo’s paperwork scare. This suits adult memoir fans drawn to circus history. I recommend it to adult readers drawn to memoirs about hands-on artistry inside the working world of twentieth-century American tent shows, and those who appreciate just plain good, immersive writing.
