The Pilo Family Circus

Jamie's tyres squealed to a halt. Standing in the glare of the headlights was an apparition dressed in a puffy shirt with a garish flower pattern It wore oversized red shoes, striped pants and white face paint. It stared at him with ungodly boggling eyes, then turned away...this seemingly random incident triggers a nightmarish chain of events as Jamie finds he is being stalked by a trio of gleefully sadistic clowns who deliver a terrifying ultimatum: you have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You're joining the circus. Ain't that the best news you ever got? Jamie is plunged into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between hell and earth from which humankind's greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place peopled by the gruesome, grotesque and monstrous, where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself - for when he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead.

About the Author

Will Elliott came to international attention when his debut novel, The Pilo Family Circus, won five Australian literary awards. In America it was short-listed for the International Horror Guild Award for best novel. His development as a writer began at nineteen, when Elliott dropped out of law school and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. With influences as diverse as Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, H. P. Lovecraft, and early Stephen King, his writing is at turns creepy, violent, spare, and wickedly imaginative. Now twenty-nine, Elliott is working on a follow-up novel and has recently completed a memoir. He lives in Brisbane, Australia.

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