The Wonders of the Little World
"A storyteller with remarkable gifts."
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Wonders of the Little World is a compelling novel that, like a journey down the midway of a colorful carnival, is filled with mystery and magic, surprise and wonder.
Estelle Esmeralda, a fortune teller in a suffocating, small-scale carnival, is unable to predict her own future, much less discover where her missing husband has gone. With their precocious eleven-year-old daughter riding along, Estelle sets out on a road trip to search for Tony, a charismatic tightrope walker who disappeared suddenly on a quest to rectify his past.
Interspersed between Estelle and Tony's chapters are secret journal entries by the spunky Ariel, who fills the pages with creative observations about her life within the unique and sometimes puzzling confines of the carnival.
The Wonders of the Little World will delight the reader like a free-wheeling thrill ride that leads straight to the heart. With its unforgettable main characters trying to discover their place in the world, the story explores the thin lines between truth and lies, between who someone is and who they want to be. Part road trip across 1960s America, part love story, and part illumination of a family struggling to heal itself, this novel immerses the reader into a world that is not only entertaining but also moving and, ultimately, enlightening.
Bill Meissner's prose is simultaneously a subtle and high-wire act, and his story-telling talents are on full display in The Wonders of the Little World
. This new novel is both haunting and lovely as Meissner brings this gallery of irresistible, compassionately rendered carnival characters to life. And to a way of life: unique, nomadic, and most of all, emotionally riveting at every stop along the way.-- Jack Driscoll, author of 20 Stories: New & Selected
Bill Meissner is such a beautiful writer. I admire his voice, his eye for detail, and his gentle humor, and The Wonders of the Little World might be his best novel yet. I was hooked from page one, and ready to follow Ariel, Estelle, and Tony wherever the road might take them. There's wonder and magic in these pages.
-- Shannon Olson, author of Welcome to My Planet: Where English is Sometimes SpokenRegarding Meissner's previous novel, National Book Award winner Tim O'Brien stated, "Meissner has the storyteller's gift for creating living characters, living speech, living emotions, living drama. He knows the workings of the human heart."
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Writer and teacher Bill Meissner is the author of twelve books, including four books of short stories and five books of poems. His novels are Summer of Rain, Summer of Fire, and Spirits in the Grass, which won the Midwest Book Award.
He taught creative writing at St. Cloud State University, and now acts as an occasional writing coach and presents readings and creative writing workshops at area colleges, high schools, elementary schools, and book clubs. He has won numerous awards for his writing, including a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, A Loft McKnight Award, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and several PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards for his short stories (one of which was selected by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.).
Meissner grew up in Baraboo, Wisconsin, also known as "The Circus City"--the birthplace of the Ringling brothers and their first circus. As a teenager, he worked in the Circus World Museum, vending peanuts, cotton candy, and snow-cones to museum visitors. His boyhood home was located a block from the county fairgrounds, and once, as a ten-year-old, he rode the Rock-O-Planes nineteen times in one day.
Bill's interests include rock music, photography, baseball, vintage typewriters, and travel--especially to tropical/beach locations such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, Chris.
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