Download The Electric Woman A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts Tessa Fontaine 9780374538408 Books
Download As PDF : The Electric Woman A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts Tessa Fontaine 9780374538408 Books
A New York Times Editors' Choice; A Southern Living Best Book of 2018; An Editors' Best Book of 2018; A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018; A New York Post Most Unforgettable Book of 2018
"Fascinating." ―Vogue
“This is the story of a daughter and her mother. It’s also a memoir, a love story, and a tale of high-flying stunts . . . An adventure toward and through fear.†―Southern Living
Tessa Fontaine’s astonishing memoir of pushing past fear, The Electric Woman, follows the author on a life-affirming journey of loss and self-discovery―through her time on the road with the last traveling American sideshow and her relationship with an adventurous, spirited mother.
Turns out, one lesson applies to living through illness, keeping the show on the road, letting go of the person you love most, and eating fire
The trick is there is no trick.
You eat fire by eating fire.
Two journeys―a daughter’s and a mother’s―bear witness to this lesson in The Electric Woman.
For three years Tessa Fontaine lived in a constant state of emergency as her mother battled stroke after stroke. But hospitals, wheelchairs, and loss of language couldn’t hold back such a woman; she and her husband would see Italy together, come what may. Thus Fontaine became free to follow her own piper, a literal giant inviting her to “come play†in the World of Wonders, America’s last traveling sideshow. How could she resist?
Transformed into an escape artist, a snake charmer, and a high-voltage Electra, Fontaine witnessed the marvels of carnival life intense camaraderie and heartbreak, the guilty thrill of hard-earned cash exchanged for a peek into the impossible, and, most marvelous of all, the stories carnival folks tell about themselves. Through these, Fontaine trained her body to ignore fear and learned how to keep her heart open in the face of loss.
A story for anyone who has ever imagined running away with the circus, wanted to be someone else, or wanted a loved one to live forever, The Electric Woman is ultimately about death-defying acts of all kinds, especially that ever constant good old-fashioned unconditional love.
Download The Electric Woman A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts Tessa Fontaine 9780374538408 Books
"Once you pick up this book, it will enthrall you and you will probably forget to make dinner, do the laundry, or even get dressed. Tessa has a unique and amazing story to tell; a very personal and touching story about her experience in the last traveling sideshow as well as her relationship with her mother. She weaves these two themes together brilliantly."
Product details
|
Tags : The Electric Woman A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts [Tessa Fontaine] on . <b>A New York Times</i> Editors' Choice; A Southern Living </i>Best Book of 2018; An Editors' Best Book of 2018; A Refinery29 </i>Best Book of 2018; A New York Post </i>Most Unforgettable Book of 2018</b> Fascinating. <b>―</b><b> Vogue</i></b> “This is the story of a daughter and her mother. It’s also a memoir,Tessa Fontaine,The Electric Woman A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts,Farrar, Straus and Giroux,0374538409,010102 FSG Paper,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment Performing Arts,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs,Biography Autobiography/Entertainment Performing Arts,Biography Autobiography/Literary Figures,Biography/Autobiography,Circus,Entertainment Performing Arts,GENERAL,General Adult,Non-Fiction,PERFORMING ARTS / Circus,Performing Arts/Circus,Personal Memoir,United States,WOMEN IN PERFORMING ARTS, best books of the year; best books of 2018; best biographies; fire eating; fire eater; mother daughter stories; carnival; carnie; carny; circus; inspirational memoir; inspirational journey; traumatic brain injury; head injuries; snake charmer; sword swallowing; freak shows; circus freaks; contortionist; a memoir; family secrets; family history; stroke; disability; feminist; feminist books; women authors; entertainer; living with disabilities; adventure stories for adults; magic shows; travel writing; mother daughter relationship; losing a loved one; grief; overcoming fears; women autobiographies; autobiographical writing; personal narrative,fire eating; fire eater; mother daughter stories; carnival; carnie; carny; circus; inspirational memoir; inspirational journey; traumatic brain injury; head injuries; snake charmer; sword swallowing; freak shows; circus freaks; contortionist; a memoir; family secrets; family history; stroke; disability; feminist; feminist books; women authors; entertainer; living with disabilities; adventure stories for adults; magic shows; travel writing; mother daughter relationship; losing a loved one; grief; overcoming fears; women autobiographies; autobiographical writing; personal narrative; best books of the year; best books of 2018; best biographies
The Electric Woman A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts Tessa Fontaine 9780374538408 Books Reviews :
The Electric Woman A Memoir in DeathDefying Acts Tessa Fontaine 9780374538408 Books Reviews
- With fearless grace and piercing intensity, Tessa Fontaine juxtaposes the thrill of eating fire with the luminous mystery of her mother’s devastating strokes and harrowing transformations. I have never read a book more tender or more true. We all live in a World of Wonders, a world of terror. The Electric Woman delivers us to the potent mercy of unmitigated love, the passion of shared suffering, the resilience of the spirit, and the ecstasies of our transfigurations. The heart breaks, and breaks open—in the divine light of despair, we discover radiant joy the hidden holiness of every breath, every being, every moment.
- Once you pick up this book, it will enthrall you and you will probably forget to make dinner, do the laundry, or even get dressed. Tessa has a unique and amazing story to tell; a very personal and touching story about her experience in the last traveling sideshow as well as her relationship with her mother. She weaves these two themes together brilliantly.
- Learning first hand what it would be like to join the circus was very interesting. Not that I ever had fantasies of joining the circus, but in reading about the sword swallowing, hammering nails into their nose, sticking pens into themselves, fire eating, and so on, i kept wondering why anyone would want to do it. The author does explain the motivation. The author deftly wove her circus experience into her feelings about her mother’s devastating stroke, and learning to be an adult. I wanted to learn something about the circus behind the scenes, and I did. The reality of how those tricks are done is that they are REALLY doing them, with the expected risks and accidents. An interesting book.
- At first, I wasn’t sure about the premise of Tessa Fontaine’s memoirs, the Electric Women. After all, what kind of person leaves a critically injured mother, debilitated by a stroke, just to join the circus? Skeptically, I began reading, and came upon this. “There is no trick. You eat fire by eating fire†(4). That’s the point. It isn’t what you do, it’s about who you become by doing it. So, the more I read the stronger my ‘aha’ moment was when I discovered Tessa Fontaine’s Electric Woman is a feminist hero’s journey. And, in classic Maureen Murdock style, Fontaine was crafting a true feminist awakening. She had me now.
As in any feminist hero’s journey, their must be a separation between the hero and society’s prescribed role of femininity. For Fontaine, this catalyst was her mother’s massive stroke that rendered her infant-like and unable to care for herself. It is then Fontaine decides to join Worlds of Wonder, a travelling sideshow circus, leaving her mother in the capable hands of her husband, Tessa’s stepfather.
Fontaine’s eschewing of the conventional feminine role of caregiving, appears to give voice to her opinion of an antiquated and dying notion of femininity, and ironically, are similar views her mother had rebelled against. Fontaine recalls watching her mother perform an act atop a surfer for onlookers in Hawaii. “She performs fearlessness. The board is unsteady atop the water and the surfer’s legs shake with the effort of balance and she quivers as she flexes her muscles to stay upright, and still she keeps one arm up, up, up toward the sky, that kind of queen pointing at the sun, that high†(14). This passage works for me because it a metaphor of the passing of the feminism baton in the mother/daughter dynamic of feminist ideology.
Besides the idea of Fontaine setting out on a feminist hero’s journey, what I also find appealing and works well is the literary effect of alternating the narrative between a turbulent relationship with a once dynamic mother that lived life caught between feminism and conformity, and Fontaine’s own quest to understand her issues of fear of losing her mother that had plagued her for years. By seeking out danger in the sideshow, Fontaine hoped it would steel her spine and harden her heart to that deepest fear.
Along her journey, Fontaine seeks validation from her male counterparts, eager to show she is just as capable as they are. She encounters all the requisite monsters of a proper quest, such as a giant, huge snakes, lots of fire, and even a human-swallowing dragon all the while questioning her own abilities and motivations for undertaking such a journey at a time when her mother’s fragile state is a constant crisis.
Slowly Tessa masters the skills of fire eating, snake wrangling, sword swallowing. Most of all she learns she’s capable of conquering her fears in a manner which celebrates the feminine aspects of herself and not as traditional patriarchy demands. As the sideshow comes to an end, it is here Tessa receives a boon. A gift of knowledge that interconnects all women. Fontaine ultimately realizes letting go of fear brought her to her gift, the sacred feminine, passed from woman to woman, mother to daughter, sister to friend. It is the understanding that they are not incidental to men, they are not other. In her efforts to lose herself, Tessa Fontaine found her way. “I didn’t know the future. But I knew I had a little power†(192).
Fontaine’s memoirs are beautifully written yielding an abundance of literary fruit yet, I found the inclusion of Raymond, the adult movie movie maker, and the dragon monster, Vore, who eats dominatrixes did not work for me. It felt disjointed from the storyline adding little more than a literal representation of being swallowed by something scary. “What is it made of?†I ask. Lady bodies, Raymond says (196). In this context it seems too much ‘on the nose’ But, it is more accurate to say it is more my issue of not understanding its relevance than of the author’s intentions. All in all a fascinating read, and a must for all fans of the feminist hero’s journey.
A book similar in type to Tessa Fontaine’s Electric Woman is All You Can Ever Know A Memoir by Nicole Chung is a story about losing your roots within your family and culture and what happens when you discover them. It too is a memoir about fear and abandonment and they multi-generational journey of the mother/daughter dynamic. - I had just met a group of other caretakers who were all struggling with the occasional despair of caretaking as well as the inevitable saying goodbye when I read this book. Maybe it was just the right book at the right time, but Tessa Fontaine hit exactly the right notes for me. It was interesting to learn about joining the last remaining side-show in America and the author did a great job of revealing that life and the characters she met. But she also wove her adventures into the adventures of her mother and her step-father. This is one of the few books I will re-read. It is both poignant and life-affirming and I highly recommend it.
- This memoir has everything a good book should—action, suspense, and plenty of heart. The writer joins the last American traveling carnival sideshow (called The World of Wonders) and learns the tricks of the trade, climbing the ranks from bally girl to the titular electric woman. Meanwhile, she reckons with her mother's illness and a relationship that hasn;t always been easy, though it's clear the two women care for each other deeply. There's plenty of humor and love here, and the details Fontaine shares about her experience in the sideshow are both fascinating and awe-inspiring. I can't recommend this book enough!
- Wow - this book blew me away! Sure, it's long but every word from the title to the epilogue is chosen with meticulous care. The result is just beautiful. I enjoyed reading about circus life - the gritty characters, physical exhaustion, and dismal economics - and the astonishing, complicated love between mother and daughter. This one will stick with me for a long time. I highly recommend it.
- I was fascinated by this book, and kept having to remind myself that it was nonfiction. I lost my own mother last year, so I enjoyed her thoughts on what it is like to lose someone, especially your mother. I was astounded by the harsh living conditions on the sideshow, and kept imagining myself trying to sleep and survive in that level of discomfort. Didn't sound good to me, so this 74 year-old will NOT be running away to the circus!
