Hands up, those
of you reading this review, if you’ve ever wanted to do something nasty to
somebody else, hmmm?
Ever felt like
walking up to the couple in the street and insinuating that either he or she
had an illicit affair with your own good self just the other week? Or what about finding a dog training school
and blowing one of those ultra-high frequency whistles just to watch the owners
lose control? Or are you the sort of
person who makes horrid faces at children in supermarkets just to make them
cry? Have you ever felt that
nasty or spiteful? Well, I’ll tell you
what, if you have you are nowhere near as bad as the characters in Will
Elliott’s ‘The Pilo Family Circus.’
What do you get
when you cross the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, the shenanigans of Spike Milligan
and a drop of the most unnecessary violence since American Psycho? It’s a book by Will Elliot called ‘The Pilo
Family Circus’ and if you’re ever intending to read this book, you had better
hold on to something. Winner of the
Inaugural ABC Fiction Award 2006, this quaint little novel, set in the madness
of suburban Australian limbo, will leave you with the uncomfortable feeling
that we all secretly share about
clowns, circus’ and everything else assorted
with them: there’s just something not right about them.
Jaime
is living in Brisbane, doing his job as a night porter at a swish club and
sharing a house with the biggest collection of dropouts since the last
collection. Coming home from his job
one night, Jaime has a late night encounter with a very, very disturbed
individual who is dressed as a clown.
From this brief scene, Jaime’s life collapses with the speed of ice
cream in an oven, as he becomes the object of attention by a group of the most
freaky, scary and dangerous clowns to ever don a pair of stripped pants and
face paint. They accuse Jaime of
stealing something very precious to them, which of course he is guilty
of and after that, the most macabre, dysfunctional and perverse section of Hell
breaks loose. After doing his best to
defend his friends (well, Steve’s an idiot, Nathaniel’s a thief and Marshall’s
a drug dealer) his property (well, his kitchen) Jaime launches an all-out
attack against his tormentors (well, he throws a rolling-pin at one of them, it
rebounds off a stomach and knocks Jaime unconscious), Jaime awakens to find an
ultimatum protruding from a most uncomfortable situation: ‘I dig the
rolling pin gag. We could use
that. We could use YOU too. You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?’ When Jaime’s housemate Steve, who also had a
very unfortunate encounter with the same group of clowns, disappears, Jaime
realises that he has no choice but to do something to pass his audition. Just one problem, how would one go about
impressing a group of
psychotic, deranged, make-up wearing, homicidal monsters?
What
can I say about The Pilo Family Circus except for this glowing review? Simply written, easy to follow, incredibly
humorous in a morbidly dark fashion, this slice of insanity is an excellent
escape from every other piece of mainstream publishing that has graced the
shelves in the last few years. This
novel excels at corrupting a common love for carnivals and circus’, destroying
stereotypes and creating a few along the way.
The transformation of Jaime into the snivelling yet murderous clown JJ
and then JJ’s antics, especially on his first outing as a clown, is not for the
easily offended. The rest of the book
follows suit, drawing and elaborating on the complex life of a carnival that is
designed to take the souls from customers when they come to watch the
performances of the carnival folk. The
freak show is aptly named, the clowns are the most sadistic and malevolent
group ever to cross a stage floor and the acrobats are the meanest bunch of
mincers on record. Throw in dwarves,
gypsies, woodchoppers and the two brothers who own the show, the monstrous Kurt
and the stunty but conniving George Pilo and you have the most eclectic but
dangerous cast of characters to burn the pages of Australian literature in a
very long time. One word of warning
though, the book is rife with foul language, so once again, if your
sensibilities are easily disturbed then this book should de-sensitise you quite
nicely.
In
conclusion, if you like your stories very dark and very humorous, very much
off-centre but vastly entertaining, I can highly recommend Will Elliot’s ‘The
Pilo Family Circus.’ I’m not the only
one either, as it was awarded the ABC Fiction Award 2006 by judges Malcolm Knox
and Delia Falconer. I have to be honest
and say I have no idea who they are but I have to respect their taste in
literature or at least originality.
Congratulations to Will Elliott for a fine book and here’s hoping for
more to come from his dark imagination.
Stuart Wilkins
(HEY buttercups, don’t listen to
what this DIPS**T says, just buy the F*****G book!)
Additional review material and foul
language provided by Gonko,
Team Leader of Clown Division,
The Pilo Family Circus