THE SWORD SWALLOWER AND A CHICO KID

The lives of a dissolute sideshow sword swallower and a self-destructive young man intersect.

Debut novelist Robinson introduces this story as a fictionalized account of the sideshow performer Capt. Don Leslie’s life and the author’s own journey. The result: colorful storytelling combined with self-conscious, confessional messaging about addiction and dysfunction. The novel, spanning decades, begins in the 1960s with Robinson’s third-person narrative about a sword-swallower named Duke. The performer is in San Francisco for his Florida-based circus’ off-season, fueling his addiction to alcohol and methamphetamine and eagerness to get back to the big tent. Duke’s gritty odyssey encompasses his growing celebrity, a life-changing stint in prison, and his affection for the so-called sideshow “freaks” that became his family when he joined the circus as a 15-year-old runaway. This section is often genuinely moving, despite the choppy cadence of short, declarative sentences (“Alcoholism and religion prevailed. It was rarely peaceful at home. Duke was smoking cigarettes at thirteen”). Before a much older Duke and 35-year-old fictional Gary meet by happenstance in Chico, California, the latter picks up the narrative as a nihilistic high school graduate in the 1980s, embarking on decades of addiction and dysfunction. Gary recounts this as an exhaustive series of anecdotes, with a jarring blend of reminiscence, self-flagellation—“I am no superstar, and that is killing me”—and philosophical interjections: “The purpose of why we are here and who we are engaged with is rarely revealed until the moment has arrived.” This aspect of the book becomes increasingly forced. The impact of Gary’s redemptive journey—sparked by Duke’s mentorship and a consciousness-raising encounter with a vomiting woman named Angel—is further weakened by long passages quoting 19th-century secularist Robert G. Ingersoll and ruminations about Christianity and the morality of criminalizing drug use. The narrative flow is hampered, too, by characters who repeatedly speak “assuredly” and “excitedly.”

An intriguing, sometimes effective tale about redemption and a remarkable mentor.