Book Tour with Tim Schooley

📆 Thursday, October 22 | 4:00-5PM

📍 at Peregrine Book Company

Join author Tim Schooley for a discussion of his new novel Circus of the Vanishing Elephant.

Tim Schooley’s first job out of high school was as a circus clown with Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus. When he discovered he was not that funny, he went to college at UC Santa Barbara and then law school at UC Berkeley. He spent 35 years as an appellate lawyer, taught appellate law at UC Davis Law School for 10 years, and worked first as a “writ attorney” and then as the managing attorney of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, in Sacramento. All along, he wrote fiction, but waited until his retirement to publish his debut novel, The Wool Translator, which was released on July 1, 2022.

How do you make an elephant disappear?

In 1974, the King Minos Circus is struggling to survive-until Christos "King" Minos unveils a dazzling new illusion: a vanishing elephant act starring Henrietta, the animal he loves more fiercely than he can admit.

But when Henrietta disappears during a parade, the trick becomes something far more dangerous.

Suspicion falls on Minos's estranged daughter, Randi-an activist who has vowed to free the circus elephants-and on Ainge, the circus's newest clown, a young man still haunted by his father's rejection after learning he is gay. Minos feels betrayed by both and vows to recover Henrietta and bring those responsible to justice.

But are Randi and Ainge the villains Minos imagines? Their journey across the American West-through small towns, roadside shows, and shifting loyalties-forces them all to confront hard questions about family, freedom, and who truly belongs to whom.

Because in the end, the fate of Henrietta may not belong to the circus at all.