#Spooktober ‘The Pilo Family Circus’ by Will Elliott

About the book…

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?”

Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself.

When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

First published in 2006, ‘The Pilo Family Circus’ by Will Elliott introduces you to the most grotesque bunch of characters ever to stalk the pages of a book.

And I do not say that lightly.

Do the clowns bring out the inner psychopath in the perpetually disaffected Jamie, or is the most monstrous of their creations?

Who can be sure, the only thing that I know after reading this novel is that it firmly entrenched my coulrophobia, and it took me so far beyond my comfort zone that I am going on a long bus ride to find it again.

The fact that this particular edition is introduced by the superb -and sadly no longer with us-Katherine Dunn, says it all, I definitely believe that it is easily close to ‘Geek Love’. If not blood related, then at least a cousin, once removed.

Jamie has an unfulfilling job serving Brisbane dignitaries in the Wentworth Gentlemen’s Club , before leaving at 2 a.m , returning to his house share, not sure if his house mates (a bully, a drug addict and a layabout) have eaten all his groceries, or if he can even use the bathroom. His room is a sanctuary, a stage set for the one hopeful day when he can bring a girl home. He has painstakingly created this environment in which he can whisk the object of his desire past the reprobates he lives with, ”each object was like a feather in a peacock’s tail, to woo and bedazzle.”

Felling cheated in life is bad enough, but coming home in his rickety, hanging on by a thread car one morning, he nearly knocks over a clown. This is a threadbare looking, mute clown who is absolutely terrifying and standing on the side of the road. He is soon joined by a second clown, who tries to move him away from the car, talking 15 to the dozen and looking like a refuge from the Prohibition era. He is looking for something that was thrown near where Jamie is hiding and, when the clowns move on, Jamie goes looking for the item.

A mysterious powder in a velvet bag is the cause of the ensuing calamity, where coming home, and going to sleep, is that last peace he will enjoy for quite some time.

His house, his body, his housemates, everything comes under attack as the clowns invade his life. Jamie and his housemate, Steve, are given set times to complete an audition to join the Pilo Family Circus , Steve first (thanks to Jamie being at work) and how would you begin to tell the police that you have 3 homicidal clowns on your case?

The vandalism, the abuse that the house and its inhabitants endure is honestly mind boggling, and as Steve’s ‘audition’ day approaches, Jamie watches closely to see what the consequences are for failure.

Failure, it appears, is not an option.

Creating his own set up to join this circus which he never heard of, and has no wish to join, he finds himself in a nightmare world, stranger and more bleak than you could ever imagine and even more surprisingly, he likes it.

Jamie and his alter ego, JJ, embark on a disturbing subversion of that childhood dream staple, running away to join the circus because they feel like they are outside of society, and do not belong. A twisted take on belonging and the meaning of the word, family, this is a full on noir tale including body horror, murder, animal cruelty (death and mutilation) and also, clowns.

About the author….

Will Elliott was a struggling 27-year old writer who had lived modestly for the past four years in order to focus his energies on writing.

He wrote five manuscripts during this period and was on the brink of giving up on his writing career, when he entered the  the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fiction Award for 2006, and won the $10,000 prize. He lives in Australia.

Twitter @wElliottAuthor @QuercusBooks