Among the Wonderful

In 1842 Phineas T. Barnum is a young man, freshly arrived in New York and still unknown to the world. With uncanny confidence and impeccable timing, he transforms a dusty natural history museum into a great ark for public imagination. In the kaleidoscopic setting of Barnum’s American Museum, the stories of two compelling characters are brought to life.Emile Guillaudeu is the museum’s grumpy taxidermist, who is horrified by the chaotic change Barnum brings to his beloved institution. Ana Swift is a professional giantess plagued by chronic pain and jaded by a world of gawkers. The differences between these two are many, but they both move toward cataclysmic change as the museum ushers America out of a culture of glassed-in exhibits and into the modern age of entertainment.Metamorphosis is at the core of Among the Wonderful. The book weaves a world where upper Manhattan is still untrammeled wilderness, the Five Points is at the height of its bloody glory, and within the walls of Barnum’s museum, ancient tribal feuds play out amid an unlikely community of marvels.