Product Description

On small-town ballfields and county fairgrounds, the sideshow performers set up their tents and trailers in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. There they amazed us with daring feats such as fire eating and sword swallowing, intrigued us with exhibitions of human oddities and various "anatomical wonders," and yes, deceived us with illusions such as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" and even outright fakes.

These bizarre spectacles engaged the mind as well as the eye. Was the human blockhead act, in which the performer pounded a large nail or ice pick into his nostril, real or fake? Was the so-called alligator boy genuine or a "gaffed" oddity, painted with glue to produce a scaly simulation of reptilian skin? While the sideshows have now all but vanished from the American landscape, they leave a fascinating legacy of romance and mystery. Many of their secrets remain, only grudgingly given up, if at all, by aging showmen and "bally talkers."

Joe Nickell—once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, a private detective, and an investigative writer—has pursued sideshow secrets for years. He has interviewed the showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched the published literature, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails while a cinderblock was broken on his chest.

Secrets of the Sideshows reveals the specific methods and tricks behind the performances, the showmen's tactics for recruiting performers and attracting crowds, and more. Nickell also examines the behind-the-scenes secrets of sideshow life, including details of the remarkable personal lives of those men and women billed as "freaks."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219124 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 424 pages

Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award winning author of The Bottoms and Freezer Burn
"A clear-eyed look into a vanishing bit of Americana. Intriguing and unique."

James Taylor, author of James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed: On & Off the Midway
"Blessed are all we rubes that Joe Nickell's Secrets of the Sideshows is out in the world."

About the Author
Joe Nickell, senior research fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), writes the "Investigative Files" column for Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Customer Reviews

secrets of the sideshows
Well, what I have recently purchased is a very interesting book. It unveils a rather dark and unknown world that for centuries has been with us. The pictures are fine but scarce, and the prose has wit and many secrets of the trade are rather amusing. In fact a very fine book

Nothing paranormal for a change
Joe Nickell's latest is quite different to other books published by him during the last few years. It's not really an investigative book and it doesn't discuss anything paranormal or unexplainable, and also, the entire books feels more like a pursuit of a personal hobby than the critical examination usually delivered by Nickell's sharp pen. However, in no way does this mean it's not worth reading, just because it happens to be more personal and relaxed than his other works. Quite the opposite, actually. Secrets of the Sideshows is an exciting experience of the mostly American phenomenon of carnys, sideshows, freaks, and carnivals.

It's not easy to find fitting translations to the above terms, and no American-style sideshows have ever made it big in Sweden. But it's still very possible to enjoy the book, even though one happens to be Swedish.

History is filled with numerous examples of strange people having displayed strange abilities, exotic animals from far-away countries have always fascinated the audience, and the grotesque, different, and sometimes flat out revolting have always been sure to make people curious. During the latter half of the 19th century traveling sideshows and carnivals started gaining more and more popularity, and the circuses of today can be considered to be the descendants of these productions. Nickell - who himself used to be a carny - paints a fascinating portrait of these pioneers of an odd business concept, and he makes it very clear to the reader that people throughout all of history, including contemporary man of course, have been exploited by shrewd entrepreneurs who have been quick to realize how to make big money from letting people witness what they have a problem comprehending.

However, the main focus of the book is on the people, animals, or objects that were exhibited. Giants, midgets, fat people, snake women, Guerilla Girl, "human skeletons", Frog Boy, fire eaters, bearded ladies, normal-looking people with not-so normal abilities, and many, many more are discussed, often accompanied by photographs from Nickell's personal collection. Cows with five legs, infants with two heads, alleged mermaids, Bigfoot and other weird are mentioned also. Nickell isn't afraid to expose how many of the magical acts were done, and he's also not afraid to expose how many of the faked oddities were manufactured (for instance, it was possible to make a "mermaid" using the upper body of an ape and the lower half of a fish). But still Nickell is keen not to neither romanticize nor ridicule anything. It's a fascinating study - or rather exploration - of both human behavior and strange individuals, and these days when the days of glory for the sideshows are all but gone the book becomes an important documentation of the strangest of all creatures: the human being.

(But on page 201, Nickell makes a major blunder when he refers to Anton LaVey, the founder of the first openly satanic movement, Church of Satan, as a "Satanist" in quotation marks. I've never encountered this spelling before, and I honestly would never have thought a learned man such as Joe Nickell would make such a strange mistake.)

The Gifted, The Grifted, The Grafted & The Gaffed
Joe Nickell's Secrets of the Sideshows (2005) presents its audience with an adequate but lackluster overview of its subject. The volume suffers from two problems. The first, and more significant, is that most of the material included has long been available elsewhere, as Nickell's numerous references to a variety of other works makes clear. The second is that, despite the author's long employment history as a carnival hand in an apparent variety of capacities, his writing style is so perfunctory that he manages to make what should be a fascinating subject seem quite dull. Therefore, the best audience for the book will be readers with a budding interest in the subject; those already conversant on the topic are unlikely to learn anything new.

Nickell, who is also a "senior research fellow" of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is honest, upfront, and unapologetic about the tone and moral tenor of most sideshow and midway personnel, who routinely, though not exclusively, defraud their thrill-seeking public in any number of ways. The author quotes a "carnival owner" as saying, "You have all the ingredients necessary to rise in your profession-a deceptively honest face, a genius for legitimate fraud, no conscience, a golden tongue, and a feeling that a quarter in somebody else's pocket is a personal rebuke." Interestingly, Nickell seems to find this sociopathic approach to life, commerce, and human relationships fully acceptable, and perhaps even inevitable. As a result, readers may come away with the impression that all or most people associated with carnival work are con men and passive aggressive bottom-feeders who would rather attempt to trick another man out of his money than work honestly to earn their own. Nickell quotes another showman, whom he believes he has caught "in a particularly cynical moment": "On my tombstone, you know what they're going to write? 'Screw you. I got your dollar.'"

Needless to say, few of the 'secrets of the sideshow,' outside of the authentic 'human oddities' and performers with a genuine skill are very fascinating: the rubber aliens, faked two-headed geese, 'giant rats,' 'jackelopes,' false 'psychics,' 'headless girls,' and enormous 'spiders' with human heads are as absurd, tawdry, and patently obvious as one would expect.

It's worth speculating whether Nickell, who has become a ubiquitous debunking presence on the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel, believes all "claims of the paranormal" are either honest mistakes of perception or outright hoaxes, however subtly accomplished, because he himself has been, via his carnival work, so experienced in promoting, selling, and by default, perpetrating hoaxes himself.