Sinister goings on in the dead of night in a sleepy town and all watched by a small boy forms the backdrop of this excellent novel, which is written by an author who has just one other novel to his name. There’s a real magical quality, not just about the writing but also spread through the whole story. Old-fashioned childhood adventures are brought to life and for those adults who want to read it too or read it with their children, they are sure to get flashbacks to their childhood days. A brilliant evocation of time and place.
On a blustery October night the Circus Oscuro came to town. It was clear from the start that this was no ordinary circus. They did not roll into town with fanfares and cartwheeling clowns. Instead they came in the dead of night, when all the townspeople were asleep. The circus wagons turned into the long field at the bottom of the hill that overlooked the town of Larde, and creaked to a halt in neat rows with barely a sound. There was just one witness to the arrival of the circus. A small boy, huddled in a large wooden barrel high on the side of the hill, watched the raising of the big top, awakened from his sleep by the shouts of the circus people and the occasional trumpeting of the elephants. The boy's name was Miles, and the barrel was his home.
Jon Berkeley was born in Dublin at a time when suits had no collars and there were no bootprints on the moon. He was educated by stern men with elbow patches, in a school where you were only allowed go to the bathroom if you asked in Irish. He attended the National College of Art and Design, where he learned to make a coffee break last the entire morning, and to do a lot of work very quickly at the last possible minute, a skill which he uses to this day. Jon has worked as a freelance illustrator for over twenty years, and has turned more recently to writing. He is the author and illustrator of Chopsticks (2004), a story about the friendship between a mouse and a dragon, and has illustrated several books by other authors. THE PALACE OF LAUGHTER is his first novel. Jon has lived and worked in Sydney, Hong Kong, London and Dublin, and now lives in a small town in Catalunya with his wife, Orna, and their five children, along with five cats, one dog and a small colony of stick insects.
