Spangle

Spangle follows Florian’s Flourishing Florilegium of Wonders from the devastated American South at the end of the Civil War to the courts, capitals and battlefields of Europe. Former Confederate colonel Zachary Edge and veteran Obie Yount join a struggling travelling circus whose performers become a surrogate family. As the troupe grows from a mud show into an international spectacle, personal ambition, love, exploitation and commercial survival remain inseparable from the work of performance.

The story covers 1865 to 1871, beginning at Appomattox and passing through Reconstruction America, newly unified Italy, Habsburg Austria, imperial Russia and the Paris of Napoleon III. Its final movement unfolds during the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris and the Commune. Jennings originally published Spangle as one novel in 1987; the three entries here are the 1999 division into Road Show, The Center Ring and The Grand Promenade.