Eyeing the Flash : The Education of a Carnival Con Artist

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating... on so many levels
Review: "Eyeing the Flash" is a fascinating coming-of-age story of a young man learning about life through the bramble bush of the Carnival midway. Equally as fascinating as the story the book tells, however, is the book itself. Consider: It purports to be a true story. But it purports to be the true story a a boy who made his mark by learning how to lie, swindle, and con gullibles marks by telling purportedly true stories. The characters in it are much too outrageous and colorful to have actually existed, But the characters are much too outrageous and colorful to have been made up. The town the story takes place in, Mineralton, Michigan, doesn't exist. But there is (or was) a Mineral Hills. The author is Peter Fenton and the main character's name is Peter Fenton, so it could really be a memoir and true. But Peter Fenton, the author, was a reporter for The National Enquirer, a publication known for, at the very least, coloring its stories when not blowing them up out of whole cloth. In short, the grifts, cons, and swindles Fenton describes in this delightfully funny book are real. But the question has to be asked: Are they all confined to the space INSIDE the covers?
Whatever the answer, the fun to be had in (and for) the asking is immeasurable.

Rating:
Summary: corn-fed con kids
Review: As a life-long urbanite, I have to gain insight into the culture of small town USA through books and the occasional film that covers the subject (a simple country drive just doesn't do it). I chose this book for that reason and found it a teasure trove of information about a way of life previously unknown to me: world of the traveling carnival. Thanks to the author, I now know what "flash" and "slum" are (the best and worst carnival prizes, respectively). Plus "hanky panks," "alibis" and "flat stores" (different types of fixed games). All this within a laugh-out-loud memoir by an author who'll have you rooting for him to sting the next "mark."

Rating:
Summary: Not a book for the true carnie
Review: I was intrigued by the title of this book and had heard good things about it. However, being a true carnival worker myself, the life depicted in the book is not even close to the life of a real carnival con artist. For 12 years I have worked at the guess your weight booth at a traveling carnival. Let me tell you it is no easy life, nor is it glamorous and sexy as this book would have you believe. Also, people eat really fatty foods when they come to the carnival and that makes my job so very difficult. You may enjoy this book, but if you have friends who are real carnies, tell them they are better off spending their money at their own carnival and winning a goldfish that will die within a week. That will be more exciting than this book. Then again, since I don't read very well, I did have someone read it out loud to me so I hope they were really reading what was on the page and not making things up as they went along.



Rating:
Summary: Clever and fun, but not a likable character in the book...
Review: This book is an allegedly autobiographical description of the early life of Peter Fenton, who was introduced to a career as a carnival con artist by his high school friend Jackie. Both Peter and Jackie are exceptionally bright, and both could be considered the poster child for "what goes wrong when school fails to challenge a bright students." From setting up an underground casino, where they fleece their fellow high school students, to working at the Party Time Carnival, where they fleece hordes of blue collar families, Peter and Jackie provide a host of entertaining insights into the sheer gullibility of the average person.

But there's not a likable character in the entire book, and I do mean not a one, which makes it a book hard to resonate to. You finish reading it wanting to take a shower. Or--and this is how bad it gets--you get a craving to buy a "Chicken Soup for the Soul" book to regain your faith in the basic goodness of human beings. Because there sure as heck is no goodness described in these pages. Whatever empathy you may be tempted to feel for Peter and Jackie, given their miserable home lives, starts to dissipate when you see them cheerfully cheating each other and the toddlers at the Duck Pond. Instead, you end up wishing that Fenton had turned his obvious talents in a more socially productive direction.

Rating:
Summary: great america nonfiction
Review: This is a very good and very American book, in the same way as the songs of Springsteen, Bob Seeger and John Mellencamp. Or the writings of Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis and Tom Wolfe in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. But definitely not like an idyllic Thomas Kincaid or Norman Rockwell painting. Nevertheless, Peter Fenton, Jackie Barron and their carnie buddies are as much as part of the heartland as wheat fields, Amway and road kill. Because from the Old West snake oil salesman to infomercial huckster and Enron accountant, putting one over on your fellow citizens has been a calling as American as apple pie. This is a very funny and yet touching book about the exhilirating joys and steep pitfalls of U.S.-style capitalism at its most rudimentary and rougish levels. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: An exciting trip through the eyes of a real hero
Review: This is nothing like I was told. I heard this was all about the show Carnivale on HBO. Following the trials and life of Felix (Stumpy) Dreifuss. You see he began his career as a talker for the famed fat-lady twins, Gillian and Shannon Bartholomew in 1910. He then joined the infamous Red Rutherford Traveling Crazy Horse Revue, where he met his future wife and business partner, Rita Sue Menninger.

Upon Rutherford's death, the young couple began traveling with various carnival companies as The Gay Paree Show, eventually joined by their two daughters, Libby and Dora Mae. For a number of years, the Dreifuss Family prospered, but their fortunes steadily declined in the 1930s as troubled times spawned a slew of competing "cootch family" acts, including the Beauvilles, the Vance Family and the notorious Franklin Girls.

Yeah, so I don't know why this book wasn't about him. It should of been!