Average customer rating:
- Good fiction; uncomfortable semi-reality
- Wow, what a great read
- EXCELLENT!
- The golden age of the circus and its lion tamer
- mabel was my kind of gal
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The Final Confession of Mabel Stark
Robert Hough
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0871138700 |
Book Description
Mabel Stark was the greatest female tiger trainer in history. During the golden age of the big top, she was the superstar of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and one of America's most eccentric celebrities. A tiny, curvaceous Kentucky blonde in a white leather bodysuit, Mabel was brazen, sexually adventurous, and suicidally courageous. It is 1968. Mabel, nursing her most serious mauling yet, is just turning eighty and about to lose her job at Jungleland, a Florida game park. Devastated by the loss of her cats, she looks back on her life and her five husbands: the fifth -- a cross-dresser whom she married without bothering to divorce the other four -- would one day be tragically mauled by her one true love, her ferocious yet amorous 550-pound Bengal tiger, Rajah. Starting with her escape from a mental institution to begin her circus career as a burlesque dancer, Mabel's exquisitely voiced confession is a live wire of dark secrets, broken dreams, and comic escapades. It is a brilliant, exhilarating story of an America before television and movies, when the spectacle of the circus reigned and an unlikely woman captured the public imagination with her singular charm and audacity.
Customer Reviews:
Good fiction; uncomfortable semi-reality.......2007-09-09
What a very peculiar novel. For one thing, when I bought it, I didn't realize Mabel Stark was a real person - and that kind of threw a shadow over the whole book. This is just too salacious and crazy a story to feel entirely comfortable as a fictionalized autobiography, especially when the subject is A) only moderately well-known, and B) only recently dead. 1968 isn't yesterday, but I'm sure there are still people alive who knew and maybe even worked with Mabel Stark.
Since the author admits in the afterword that he changed certain things to fit the story, as well as filling in blanks, how much of this is real? What about the numerous, and rather descriptive sexual details? As a piece of fiction it's a very enjoyable, if episodic book, with a unique narrative voice - but as "fictional non-fiction" it's a bit...iffy.
Wow, what a great read.......2007-03-04
I thought this was a wonderful book. It's written in the first person and I loved the voice that Robert Hough created for Mabel Stark. I recently read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, I really enjoyed it and wanted more circus stories. I read Circus Fire by Stuart O'Nan, a non-fiction account of the Hartford big top fire in 1944 and unfortunately it did little to satisfy my quest for more circus stories. The Final Confessions of Mabel Stark was very satisfying. Houg does a great job of describing circus life and all of the trials and tribulations that the fictional Mabel goes through. I thought it was great!
EXCELLENT!.......2005-05-13
This book was excellent. It's the sort of book you think about all the time until you can pick it up again.
BUY IT!
The golden age of the circus and its lion tamer.......2004-11-04
Possibly the greatest tiger trainer of all time, certainly the greatest female trainer, Mabel Stark rose to the top of her profession during the heyday of the circus, the 1910's and `20s. Tiny but fearless, she drew huge crowds, particularly for the wrestling act with her 500 pound Bengal, Rajah, conducted in a leather jumpsuit which became her signature costume.
Canadian author Hough's well-researched debut novel (which won Ontario's Trillium Award) is full of the rough and tumble of circus life. As involving as it is informative, as moving as it is riveting, the book takes the form of a memoir, or confession. It's the end of a career that spanned five husbands and rose from carny girlie shows to top billing at Ringling, followed by a long denouement as a trainer at JungleLand animal park. It's 1968 and Mabel is facing her 80th birthday.
"Still, I'm not a complainer, never have been never will be, so I'll skip the drawbacks and jump to the thing I do like about aging. The mind gets supple. Believe it or not, it does. You start seeing around corners. You start picturing what's behind you without having to crane your neck (which you can't do anyway, seeing as it's getting stiffer by the day). It's the one recompense of being aged and wrinkly and sore: you learn the trick of being in two places at once."
Time, she says, changes with age. From a forward march it becomes an accumulation, then something different again: "like gumballs in a penny machine, all mixed together, jumbled up, rubbing the colour off one another." Age has affected how she sees her "greatest sin," the event that divided her life into "before" and "after." "Then one day I woke up and my worst sin had come unhobbled in time. Started wandering, it had. Suddenly it was something I'd always done, something I'd always been capable of doing. Suddenly it was a part of me."
Mabel anchors the narrative in 1968, moving between past and present. But mostly she keeps the flow chronological. An author's note at the end describes Hough's major sources of research and his considered departures from known fact. It's known that Mabel was a nurse before she became a carnival dancer, but how she got there is vague, though at least one source says she had a nervous breakdown. Hough provides her with a boorish husband and has him commit her, mostly because she found sex with him abhorrent. The horror of marriage is only exceeded by the sadistic therapy, and Mabel uses her God-given wits to get as far from both as possible. Sensing what the one kindly doctor wants to hear from her, she eventually convinces him to help her escape and thanks to another man, finds herself a carny show job.
Men are the pattern in Mabel's life. An orphan, she's spent her life looking for love. Though she never develops much interest in sex, men mark the high and low points in her life. Cats are the constant. When lion trainer Louis Roth falls for her, he gives her her heart's desire - a chance to work with the big cats. From there it's onwards and upwards, except when some man shoots her down. And all the while, she's building toward that day in 1927 when her life changed forever, when she did something so awful, it takes most of the book to get there.
"The thing that scares me the most? The thing that makes me jittery, that makes me dart for one of Dr. Brisbane's pills, that makes me contemplate rash actions: What if neither God nor luck has anything to do with it? What if we make our own luck? What if everything that happens to us happens because we wanted it that way?"
An awful thought for a woman who's had a lot of luck, good and bad, and it's a fear she develops throughout the narrative as impulse and timing combine to send her soaring and tumbling. Mabel's personality drives this unsparing, tumultuos story, full of love and loss, but weighted with her inability to sustain happiness.
Hough steeps the story in circus atmosphere - the ego and competitiveness of the performers, the strict pecking order, the downtrodden workingmen, the animals, the day-to-day tribulations of life on the road in all weather. The tedious hard work of training and the sudden heart-stopping tiger maulings. It's an exotic and exciting picture of the circus' golden age and one talented and tormented (and well scarred) star. A wonderful novel, which marks the debut of a writer to watch.
mabel was my kind of gal.......2004-07-03
I gave this book five stars because I think its an origianl work and since this is huegh's first novel I'm super impressed. This is a fictinoal bio told in the first person. Mabel's expressions and emotions are laid out for the reader in a wonderful style. The story courses back and forth from present day 80 year old mabel to 20 something novice learning the ropes of big cat training. The reader is taken on the road with the circus and mabel and experinces the ups and downs of her affairs and her tiger act. A good portion of the story is spent with Raja mabel's true love a six hundred pound bengal tiger. The story is compelling, at times humorus, and bitter sweet.
Book Description
In the 1910s and '20s, during the golden age of the big top, Mabel Stark was the superstar of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and one of America's most eccentric celebrities. A tiny, curvaceous Kentucky blonde in a white leather bodysuit, Mabel was brazen, sexually adventurous, and suicidally courageous. The Final Confession of Mabel Stark is Robert Hough's brilliant, highly acclaimed novelization of her fantastic life. It is 1968 — Mabel is just turning eighty and is about to lose her job at Jungleland, a Southern California game park. Devastated by the loss of her cats, she looks back on her life and her five husbands: the fifth would one day be tragically mauled by her one true love, her ferocious yet amorous 550-pound Bengal tiger Rajah. Starting with her escape from a mental institution to begin her circus career as a burlesque dancer, Mabel's exquisitely voiced confession is a live wire of dark secrets, broken dreams, and comic escapades. It is a brilliant, exhilarating story of an America before television and movies, when the spectacle of the circus reigned and an unlikely woman captured the public imagination with her singular charm and audacity.
Customer Reviews:
Love Circus/Carnival Books?.......2007-08-26
Well, I do, and I absolutely loved this book!!!! I bought it on a whim when I was in a very large book store in Portland, OR. I put off reading it for a few months and then decided what the heck, it looked entertaining. Wow, did that turn out to be an understatement. It was one of those books which you can't put down, but then you are so sorry when it ends because it leaves an empty space in you, one only a really GOOD Book can fill. I have loaned it to several of my girlfriends and everyone of them raves about it. We all know it's not the "True Life" story of Mabel Stark, but the bits of truth that are there are as fasinating as the fiction. I now trust my "whims" when looking for a good book to read, which is an ongoing search as I read daily, sometimes 2 books at a time. Next to playing with my grandchildren reading is my favorite way to pass the day and sometimes even the nights.
Suzanne Himmelberg/Missouri
Wow, what a great read!.......2007-05-19
I thought this was a wonderful book. It's written in the first person and I loved the voice that Robert Hough created for Mabel Stark.
I recently read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, I really enjoyed it and wanted more circus stories. I read Circus Fire by Stuart O'Nan, a non-fiction account of the Hartford big top fire in 1944 and unfortunately it did little to satisfy my quest for more circus stories.
The Final Confessions of Mabel Stark was very satisfying. Houg does a great job of describing circus life and all of the trials and tribulations that the fictional Mabel goes through.
I thought it was great!
disappointed but did finish it.......2007-03-27
This book has all the makings of a really great read, and it does start off that way. The character of Mabel tells her own story in first person and most of it has a ring of authenticity.
Unfortunately, however, the author had a pre-occupation with what Mabel's sex life may have been like. We read how she had good and bad sex with all her husbands and, in one passage, even with her favorite tiger. Much of it seems gratuitous, as if the author couldn't imagine much of anything else that might be interesting in the life of a female tiger trainer in a traveling circus in the early- and mid-20th century!
I'm no prude (understatement) but with all the material that someone should have been able to use to flesh out the life of such a potentially fascinating character, the one thing we get over and over again is her sex life. I guess that's why it's called her "Final Confessions", but what a disappointment. There was so much to work with here, and most of it went ignored.
decent read.......2005-03-11
I got this book hoping it would be a romp through the carnival world at/around the turn of the century. There is some great stuff in the book about Mabel and her tiger training, but I was hoping for more from the rest of the carnival. 3/5 of the book is quality, but the rest is a little long in the tooth. I had fun reading the book but I was glad when it was over.
A female tiger trainer in the golden age of circus.......2005-02-27
Possibly the greatest tiger trainer of all time, certainly the greatest female trainer, Mabel Stark rose to the top of her profession during the heyday of the circus, the 1910's and `20s. Tiny but fearless, she drew huge crowds, particularly for the wrestling act with her 500 pound Bengal, Rajah, conducted in a leather jumpsuit which became her signature costume.
Canadian author Hough's well-researched debut novel (which won Ontario's Trillium Award) is full of the rough and tumble of circus life. As involving as it is informative, as moving as it is riveting, the book takes the form of a memoir, or confession. It's the end of a career that spanned five husbands and rose from carny girlie shows to top billing at Ringling, followed by a long denouement as a trainer at JungleLand animal park. It's 1968 and Mabel is facing her 80th birthday.
"Still, I'm not a complainer, never have been never will be, so I'll skip the drawbacks and jump to the thing I do like about aging. The mind gets supple. Believe it or not, it does. You start seeing around corners. You start picturing what's behind you without having to crane your neck (which you can't do anyway, seeing as it's getting stiffer by the day). It's the one recompense of being aged and wrinkly and sore: you learn the trick of being in two places at once."
Time, she says, changes with age. From a forward march it becomes an accumulation, then something different again: "like gumballs in a penny machine, all mixed together, jumbled up, rubbing the colour off one another." Age has affected how she sees her "greatest sin," the event that divided her life into "before" and "after." "Then one day I woke up and my worst sin had come unhobbled in time. Started wandering, it had. Suddenly it was something I'd always done, something I'd always been capable of doing. Suddenly it was a part of me."
Mabel anchors the narrative in 1968, moving between past and present. But mostly she keeps the flow chronological. An author's note at the end describes Hough's major sources of research and his considered departures from known fact. It's known that Mabel was a nurse before she became a carnival dancer, but how she got there is vague, though at least one source says she had a nervous breakdown. Hough provides her with a boorish husband and has him commit her, mostly because she found sex with him abhorrent. The horror of marriage is only exceeded by the sadistic therapy, and Mabel uses her God-given wits to get as far from both as possible. Sensing what the one kindly doctor wants to hear from her, she eventually convinces him to help her escape and thanks to another man, finds herself a carny show job.
Men are the pattern in Mabel's life. An orphan, she's spent her life looking for love. Though she never develops much interest in sex, men mark the high and low points in her life. Cats are the constant. When lion trainer Louis Roth falls for her, he gives her her heart's desire - a chance to work with the big cats. From there it's onwards and upwards, except when some man shoots her down. And all the while, she's building toward that day in 1927 when her life changed forever, when she did something so awful, it takes most of the book to get there.
"The thing that scares me the most? The thing that makes me jittery, that makes me dart for one of Dr. Brisbane's pills, that makes me contemplate rash actions: What if neither God nor luck has anything to do with it? What if we make our own luck? What if everything that happens to us happens because we wanted it that way?"
An awful thought for a woman who's had a lot of luck, good and bad, and it's a fear she develops throughout the narrative as impulse and timing combine to send her soaring and tumbling. Mabel's personality drives this unsparing, tumultuos story, full of love and loss, but weighted with her inability to sustain happiness.
Hough steeps the story in circus atmosphere - the ego and competitiveness of the performers, the strict pecking order, the downtrodden workingmen, the animals, the day-to-day tribulations of life on the road in all weather. The tedious hard work of training and the sudden heart-stopping tiger maulings. It's an exotic and exciting picture of the circus' golden age and one talented and tormented (and well scarred) star. A wonderful novel, which marks the debut of a writer to watch.
Average customer rating:
|
Final Confession of Mabel Stark
Robert Hough
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Literary
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ASIN: 1417723092 |
Average customer rating:
|
The Final Confession Of Mabel Stark
Robert Hough
Manufacturer: Bolinda Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
Contemporary
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ASIN: 1740933702 |
Book Description
How to turn your relationship into a lifelong romance--in just 24 hours! A magical formula for passion, pleasure, and playfulness
All you have to do is remember nine simple rules--
It's true. If you can remember nine easy rules, you and your mate can stay passionately in love, not just for the early months of the relationship, but for a lifetime! A simple formula, called K.I.S.S. (Keep It Something Special) created by Dr. Ellen Kreidman, has already worked for thousands of couples, and you can get the same dramatic results.
The K.I.S.S. plan starts to work in the time it takes to read this book, often in less than 24 hours! If you have any doubts, Kreidman provides real-life success stories of couples who've done it. So don't wait. Find out the secrets behind--
"The 10-second kiss"--the simple, transforming act that says "I love you" to your mate each and every day
The technique that takes communication to a level so deep, it's magical
The amazing power of fantasy to keep your mate desiring you for months to come
The most erotic thing you can do to turn your lover on--and more!
From the Paperback edition.
Book Description
A BOLD NEW CONTINGENT–FORCE RECON–JOINS THE EXPLOSIVE STARFIST SPACE EPIC OF MARINES AT WAR.
A Confederation army is besieged on the planet Ravenette, cut off by and facing destruction at the hands of a dozen Secessionist Coalition worlds arrayed against it. The outnumbered and outgunned forces cling precariously to their foothold, dubbed “Bataan” by the desperate men in their fighting bunkers. Reinforcements are on the way, but will they arrive in time? And even if they do, can they match the well-led, highly motivated enemy determined to destroy them in battle?
But the Confederation commander holds a wild card, an elite force armed only with what they carry on their backs and in their heads: a small detachment of Marines who lightly go where others fear to tread, the Fourth Force Recon Company. For anyone else this mission would be suicide, but for these Marines, it’s just another day in the maelstrom.
Customer Reviews:
Starfist; Force Recon.......2007-08-07
As in the review I gave for Firestorm, I give here, except this a view point from the marines, who gather the intelligence. These boys have better toys then their counterparts. The story is good and is well balanced. The authors leave you with wanting more, which means you have to wait until the next book. This goes for all the books of the StarFist series. Read and enjoy.
point blank starfist force recon.......2007-01-12
Liked the book better than the first one in the series,but isn't as good as the original series of star fist.
Good military scifi.......2006-11-16
A little slow to start, but then gets going as with all of their books. Similar to John Ringo and David Weber.
An entertaining read.......2006-09-27
There is a lot to like about this book. Jak Daly, for example, is a very appealing persona; the authors' real-life military experience helps make him and the other characters seem more real. The officer training, inter-service rivalries and military jargon are solid attributes of Sherman and Cragg's writing. There is also a lot to dislike, unfortunately. The plot is quite shallow and predictable, the bad guys are terminally stupid and technologically outclassed, the marines are universally heroic while the army is run by a bunch of dolts (e.g., General Billie), and there is a lot of shameless self-promotion (e.g., references to the Starfist series). It would be a lot more exciting if the Secessionist forces were intelligent, crafty, and well led. None of this should be surprising; it's no different than any of the author's other ~20 books. If you like their work, this one rates at the upper end of what they have done so far. If you don't like their writing style this one won't change your opinion. I found it a fun, light read. The Force Recon series takes a fresh twist on the Starfist verse. I really like the concept and mostly enjoyed this iteration of the series. An entertaining read.
Self Promotion Thy name is either Dan Cragg or David Sherman.......2006-09-21
AArgg.. I'm increasingly disgusted by the authors self-promotion. In each of their books it gets worse! This time there is almost a chapter dedicated to refering to the authors other works and worse yet refering to starfist!!!
Pat yourselves on your backs some other way guys. It's shameless and tacky the way your doing it now.
As for the rest of the book....Simplistic with sci fi techno toys thrown in to liven up the plot. The main series is better but as filler Force recon isn't bad.
Buy the book used or borrow it from your local library. It ain't worth the full price.
Book Description
This revised edition of a thorough guide offers steps for anyone interested in keeping a spiritual journal, from recommendations for notebooks to ways to work through common frustrations and writer's block. Ron Klug relies on his experience as a workshop leader, journal keeper, and author to create a book that is both helpful and wise.
Customer Reviews:
Spiritual Journaling.......2006-11-22
This is a great book on Spiritual Journaling. This book takes you on a Spiritual Journey. It is not only a guide but an experience to read. It seems like throughout life we all try to find a way to draw nearer to God through prayer or Bible study. This book gives a variety of methods to draw nearer to God by writing to Him and sharing your experiences with Him. This book is about conversation not just verbal conversation. We read, we listen, we experience, and we express our feelings on paper. It helps us to focus on our relationship with God. This method helps us to dig deeper for those golden nuggets of spiritual truth that we can apply to our lives day by day.
Very Helpful Guide.......2005-01-14
This is a great book. It provided great tools and insights for me as I started a journal. It's very practical. I work in a Christian camp, and shared the book with several co-workers, who also found it helpful. Journaling is helping me deepen my walk with Christ.
Not what I expected.......2004-11-07
When I bought this book, I thought it would focus more on spiritual growth and getting in touch with our inner self and our feelings. Instead the book quotes the Bible back and forth as if being a spiritual person is the equivalent of reading the Bible or even quoting it. So I was rather upset about that clear endorsement of Christianity via Bible reading. However, if you skip the more religious stuff, it is a rather enjoyable book to read. If the editorial review had mentioned all the Bible/Christian endorsements, I would have not purchased this book.
Before you slamm me, note that I am a Christian person, but I also believe that there are other religions out there that have merit and I don't think that being a good Christian means that you have to read the Bible and go to church. From my experience, I see tons of people who do both and are lousy human beings. Actually, I avoid going to church because I don't want to mingle with the many hypocrites that go there.
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- The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark
- The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines
- The Laws of Evening: Stories
- The Lion and the Throne: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Vol. 1
- The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
- The Melancholy of Resistance
- The Oath and the Measure (Dragonlance: The Meetings Sextet, Vol. 4)
- The Power of Form: African Art From the Horstmann Collection
- The Rachel Papers
- The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese (New York Review Books Classics)
Books Index
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