The Night Circus

By Erin Morgenstern

Doubleday, $26.95

BY KATRINA DENZA

Special to The Pilot

If you're looking for a fun read, Erin Morgenstern's debut novel is as imaginative as it is enchanting.

In "The Night Circus," a mysterious circus arrives without warning in the middle of the night, eventually vanishing as it moves on to another town in another part of the world.

It's an odd circus, only open at night, limited in color to black, white and shades of gray, and comprises many tents all arranged in a circle within which amazing, elegant acts are offered by gifted performers.

There's an ice garden, a contortionist, a fortune-teller and a cloud maze, among other wonders. Even the candy is sweeter.

The reader soon learns the circus is a complex construct through which a challenge is being played, a challenge between two men with very different world views and their apprentices, each trained according to his mentor's philosophies.

These two apprentices, one a woman, the other a man, are much more than illusionists; they work hard to make reality seem like a trick rather than the other way around. The stakes are high: death to the loser. However, when setting the challenge up, the two men neglected to imagine the role love would play.

Don't be worried about the magic turning too dark. The book remains fairly innocuous, with the exception of the somewhat abusive control the men maintain over their charges.

Morgenstern's descriptions of the circus and the wonders within are lush; even the book itself has a lovely design. The spirit of the book and my favorite passage can be found near the end:

"Magic," the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. "This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you," he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. "Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what's worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence."

Katrina Denza's stories have been published in several literary journals. Recently, she was awarded a Carol Houck Smith Contributor Scholarship for the 2011 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.