Spangle: Road Show

In April 1865, former Confederate colonel Zachary Edge and the resourceful Obie Yount leave the defeated Army of Northern Virginia and encounter Florian’s Flourishing Florilegium of Wonders. The travelling circus has survived the war but must rebuild audiences, equipment and acts across a devastated South. Edge becomes its equestrian director and learns the practical disciplines of routes, animals, publicity, performance and cash flow while performers with sharply different histories form an unstable community.

The first volume follows the show from Appomattox through the opening of Reconstruction. Defeat, emancipation and economic ruin shape every town in which the circus raises its tents, while Edge must decide whether the troupe offers escape from the past or a different form of command. The decision to cross the Atlantic closes the American road-show phase and prepares the company for a larger European circuit.