Greetings Bookworms!
I’m about to tell you a story about what happens when one doesn’t read titles carefully. I was browsing NetGalley one day looking for something to read (it’s a rare occasion that I go hunting for books in this manner, as they usually find me, but I was in a reading lull.) Anywho. I ran across a book called Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet
Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet is set in 1904 Coney Island. Kitty Hayward is a British girl visiting the attractions in Coney Island with her mother when her mother comes down with a mysterious illness. The hotel staff send her off on a fool’s errand for some medicine, and upon her return she’s treated as though she and her mother were never at the hotel. She’s left marooned on a strange island in a strange country. She’s penniless and frightened, not to mention terrified for her mother’s well-being. The residents of Coney Island are largely “Unusuals,” or the sideshow entertainers. It’s an eclectic bunch of strongmen, flea wranglers, lion tamers, and con men that Kitty encounters, but the Unusuals quickly embrace their suddenly impoverished foreign guest. Plagues make for strange bedfellows, after all, because that mysterious illness Kitty’s mother contracted? It’s spreading.
I must admit I was rather disappointed to discover that there was no actual reported outbreak of plague in Coney Island during this time period. I like my historical fiction best when the overarching situations are rooted in fact. I also adore a motley crew of misfits, so I was on board with the Unusuals and their fascinating little society. Unfortunately, I found the execution just a bit clunky. It got to a point where it seemed like every cool or quirky concept the author brainstormed while writing was thrown in for the sake of not wasting an idea rather than making sure it worked well in the narrative. In the end, I was left wanting more backstory for certain characters and fewer extraneous asides. Still, I think it’s a book worth reading- it’s certainly a fun and bizarre ride. If you’re in the mood for something different and dig the whole circus/sideshow thing, you should totally check out Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet.
Talk to me, Bookworms! Have any of y’all been to Coney Island? What’s it like? Is it one of those places that just seems to breathe with old timey creeptasticness?
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Heather
That cover yo! Love!
Jenny @ Reading the End
Okay, despite having lived in New York for several years, I must admit that I have never been to Coney Island. But when I’ve asked people who have been in Coney Island what it’s like in Coney Island, they have nearly uniformly said that it’s strange and sad there because of how obvious it is that it used to really Be Something.
Words For Worms
That is EXACTLY how I imagine it.
Kailana
This book would have caught my eye, too!
Kristen M.
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who will go look up historical items that are mentioned in fiction to see if they are based in reality! When they are, even slightly, it just adds so much more in my mind!
And I’ve only been to NY once on a whirlwind trip (I didn’t even go into the city!) but I almost tried to shoehorn a visit to Coney Island in anyway because I wanted to go so badly. I was seriously just a couple miles away.