American OZ: An Astonishing Year Inside Traveling Carnivals at State Fairs & Festivals: Hitchhiking From California to New York, Alaska to Mexico

Summary

“MAJESTIC! ... DEEP OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE!” – CHICAGO TRIBUNE

American OZ is a rollicking, gritty, adventurous year in the secretive subculture of traveling carnivals. You’ll never see your state fair or neighborhood festival the same again.

It’s a new classic American road story! Comerford writes a bold, inspiring true story of a year working shoulder-to-shoulder with the colorful characters and legends of carnivals.

Read stories of freaks, a carnival pimp, a tramp gold miner, and the last King of the Sideshows. An insult dunk tank clown is shot. Masked gunmen rob his carnival. And a young showman friend dies on the road.

Hitchhike with him to shows in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, and Florida where he works in a freak show. He becomes the #1 hitchhiker in the USA.

Travel to the lawless foothills of Mexico to a village that empties out of men each season as they head north to carnivals

Explore issues of the American caste system, working poor, immigration, and the life force of collective joy.

People seek love and meaning on the road. And we find the world runs on untold stories.