Fall if the Flamingo Circus

by Kate Rigby

Fall Of The Flamingo Circus is the story of a strong and independent girl’s childhood and adolescence, her desperate battle to make something of the fearful hand dealt to her. Through her eyes we see the realities of poverty in England – hunger and junk food, boredom and noise at home, snobbery and notoriety at school – and the fear of a brutal father…over the years we watch Lauren’s voice grow in power and imagination, as her life – a rebel, a punk, admired by her gang but rejected and victimised by men – bursts out of its sad confines…but Lauren is always alone with her restless and furious she alone will discover the pain and loneliness of being different, crazy, colourful in an England turned grey, obedient and satisfied.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

I've been writing for nearly forty years. Good gracious, that long? I realized my unhip credentials were mounting so decided to write about it. Little Guide to Unhip was first published in 2010 and is now updated and republished.

However I'm not totally unhip. My punk novel, Fall Of The Flamingo Circus was published by Allison & Busby (1990) and by Villard (American hardback 1990). It's now been re-kindled.

I received a Southern Arts bursary for my novel Where A Shadow Played (now Did You Whisper Back?)

Skrev Press published my novels Seaview Terrace (2003) Sucka! (2004) and Break Point (2006) and other shorter work has appeared in Skrev’s avant garde magazine Texts’ Bones including a version of my satirical novella Lost The Plot.

Thalidomide Kid was first published by Bewrite Books (2007)

The following books are available in paperback at the following place (or by following the Amazon links below):

Far Cry From The Turquoise Room:
https://www.createspace.com/3634041

Savage to Savvy:
https://www.createspace.com/4210694

Little Guide To Unhip:
https://www.createspace.com/4847276

Down The Tubes:
http://www.amazon.com/Down-Tubes-Kate...

She Looks Pale & Other Stories:
https://www.amazon.com/She-Looks-Pale...


E-books available:

Fruit Woman:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013...

The Dead Club:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V0Y73DC

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Fall Of The Flamingo Circus:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0088E29H2

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14...

Suckers n Scallies (Formerly 'Sucka'):
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WTARYY

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Down The Tubes:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UC51NK

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Seaview Terrace:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SV2DBG

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Break Point:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004TNGRBU

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Thalidomide Kid:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008N3I904

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Far Cry From The Turquoise Room:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZF80N0

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Little Guide to Unhip:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C121N2E

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86...

Savage To Savvy
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ASBQAE

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

She Looks Pale:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00821360A

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...

Did You Whisper Back?:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0077E2M26

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...

Lost The Plot:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...

Tales By Kindlelight:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005J0HNSI

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...


Short stories of mine have been published and shortlisted including Hard Workers and Headboards in various collections and anthologies:

On Your Half Century:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SJIR2OW

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Sharing Sarah:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PNVD5I0
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Cutting Edge:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P1AQGLQ

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Coats:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P1A47SU

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Family Tradition:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RARWYS2

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Hard Workers:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009JW4OZM

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

I'm also a reader - quit

Reviews

[Carien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book back in 1990 in the Dutch translation and fell in love with it. I reread it many times in the years after, but not since I switched to mostly reading in English.

Not long ago I mentioned this book to a friend and it made me want to do another reread. I got hold of the English version this time.

And again I was gripped by this story and I was reminded why I fell in love with it all these years ago.

Lauren is a bit of an antihero. She doesn't fit in and is angry at the world. Then Punk arrives and it's like it is made for her. All her rage and disgust find an outlet. She revels in being different, in shocking people. In rebelling against the world she finds her place in it.

But then her friends all find purpose in life, other ways to live and they move away from the Punk scene. Can Lauren find a way to do the same, to find peace and a way to move into adulthood without losing herself?

So many things in this story spoke to me back then and still resonate with me now. Lauren's life might not be like my own, but many of the feelings she struggles with feel familiar.

Told like a diary the story begins when Lauren is seven years old. One of the things I like is how her writing progresses as she grows up, making it feel real.

Lauren isn't easy to love, but to those who struggle, or have struggled, to find their place in life she's very relatable.

[Kelly (purplebookstand) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fall of the Flamingo Circus: Diary of a Punk

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I chose to read this book but I have to admit that I ended up not being able to put it down! I loved it!

Admittedly it took me a while to get used to the writing style, but once I did, I really got into Lauren’s story. I lived the life experiences with her and travelled her journey from her seven year old self, to an older Lauren with a more mature take on life. She wasn’t dealt a great hand...an abusive father, poverty, broken families, many siblings and so much more. Through her diary entries we see Lauren use the punk lifestyle to cope with her hand in life and receive the attention she craves.

I’m so glad I decided to read this book, once I’d read a few diary entries I was hooked! Four punk rock stars from purplebookstand!

[Hilary Mortz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember Punk Rock, I was there even though I was a rubbish punk - not nearly as cool as Lauren, the heroine of this book, who manages to reject her disadvantaged and marginalised background to reinvent herself as the iconic 'Vamp'.

The 1970's are the stuff of historical fiction now, much the same as family sagas about the 'Roaring Twenties' and the Second World War, and so they should be. If you read this book with that in mind there is much to be enjoyed and to relate to, especially the descriptions of working class family life and all the fashions and music.

This is a lyrical and skillfully written piece. If I have a criticism it would be that Lauren's story drifts away at the end leaving the reader unsatisfied. What happens next? Will she ever find happiness? The book was written in 1990 and it would be nice to reconnect with her and find out how life was treating her in the 21st Century.

[Simon Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was asked to read and review this book I wasn't sure if it would be to my liking, but I am glad I took a chance on it as I loved it.

The book follows the life of a girl called Lauren and what she writes in her diary, so obviously it is all from her point of view.

We start off when Lauren is young and living at home, so we see what it was like to live in poverty back in the 80's and then as she grows up we follow her life as she moves to Brighton lives in a house with a group of people all brought together by homelessness.

This was a really moving and thought-provoking book, which I enjoyed and will stay with me for a long time

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 - 3.5 stars review to follow

[Keith Nixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flamingo Circus is written as a first person diary starting when Lauren Schanzer is seven in 1968, it sporadically follows her growth through childhood, teenage rebellion and maturity in 1983.
Lauren hasn’t had the best start in life - abject poverty, a large and growing family and an abusive father – she struggles to make her mark in life. Until punk arrives. Lauren marches out into the world…

I thoroughly enjoyed Flamingo Circus. It is largely set in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when punk swept through the UK. I was nine years old then so I remember some of it, however Rigby captures the punk subculture, and in particular Lauren’s own feeling of release from her restrictive upbringing, very well. It’s one of the strong points of the story.

At times, the descriptive writing was excellent. The characters are generally strong, in particular Lauren herself and her domineering father. Many other characters come and go, sometimes lightly painted, sometimes deeper depending upon their involvement in Lauren’s life at the time. The sense of place is also very good, particularly when stuck with an abusive boyfriend and in a squat. It was a compelling story and made me want to keep turning the pages. I finished Flamingo Circus in a couple of sittings.

Flamingo Circus also captures Lauren’s experiences of a poor upbringing as part of a large and ever expanding family, her domineering father and the lack of prospects that comes from a wasted education. It’s bleak stuff.

An example of some of the writing:

Inside it’s less gloomy than the blackened dried-blood brick world outside. This is a typical bedsit. All the flats in this house have the same gaudy repetitive wallpaper over the kitchenette. I have glimpsed inside them all. The carpet is psychedelic too. Looks as if it’s crawling with insects when it’s really your brain making the patterns dance.

And:

I like the wet street. The green and red and white traffic and car lights all run into each other, like a child’s painting.

As a result of her father Lauren struggles with relationships. The couple of boyfriends she has are much like him, there’s an inevitability of a downward spiral towards domestic violence. For example:

I can’t bear him to sleep so easily when I’m so restless. I bounce and pinch and scratch and shriek. I put the kitchen taps on full pelt til he wakes. He has started to hit me. I knew he would – it was just a question of when. I expect him to. I know now that he cares about me.

Lauren thankfully manages to escape her abusive relationship, sneaking out at night. I really felt with her as she crept out of the bedsit and started another phase of her life.

I also liked that as Lauren developed so did her spelling and prose. As a seven year old it was unsurprisingly poor. Her education wasn’t great so neither was her sentence construction. However, as she moves out into the world, reads and experiences new people, books and music her writing becomes smoother. This was another very good way of putting over Lauren’s background.

My only issue with the book, and it’s a small one, was the ending. It just sort of…happened. Lauren’s life didn’t seem resolved in any way. However, I guess diaries do just do that, one day you’re writing one, the other you’re not. This, though, is a personal view. I like stories to close off.

A really good read, in particular for people who have memories of the era.

**Originally reviewed for Books & Pals blog. May have received free review copy.**

[Andrew Seaward · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her vividly-written novel, The Fall of the Flamingo Circus, Kate Rigby takes us on a compelling, hair-spiked, metal-studded journey through the UK’s music-inspired punk movement of the 1970’s. The hero, or anti-hero I should say, is Lauren Schanzer, an angst-ridden, anarchistic teen whose desire to rebel against all things “bourgeois” and “conventional” is matched only by her desperation to belong to something, anything bigger than herself. A product of a broken home and a physically abusive, borderline-sociopathic father, Lauren desperately seeks out the attention she never received as a child. She does this by dressing herself in a kaleidoscope of wildly imaginative, yet abhorrently objectionable ensembles while fashioning her hair into wax-cemented spikes tall enough to impale a pigeon (or at least whack its beak).

Frustratingly flippant one minute yet profoundly philosophical the next, Lauren is the kind of girl a well-to-do, working-class stiff like myself might sneer at in the company of my colleagues, yet occupy my mind the rest of the week. She’s like a Salvador Dali painting; flamboyantly shocking on the surface, yet filled with a deep, emotional, sensibility underneath. Although her appearance may be designed to repel, underneath, I believe it’s true intention is to draw you in for a closer look. It certainly did this for me, anyway.

The minute I picked up this book and started reading, I couldn’t help but feel closer and closer to Lauren and deeply moved by her desperate cries for attention. As I got further along in the story, all I wanted to do was reach out and wipe all that crap off of her; the hair gel, the piercings, the makeup, the eyeliner—I wanted to tear it all away and find out what was really underneath all of that bravado.

Fortunately, the author, Kate Rigby, does a brilliant job of taking us inside the mind of her tragically-flawed anti-heroin. Through a series of vividly –drawn, intimate diary entries, we learn things about Lauren that probably would never have surfaced through a conventional first-person narrative. The result is an upfront and personal account of a sweet, little English girl driven to anarchy and rebellion, by a poverty-stricken family with a drunken, vile, waste of a human for a patriarch.

The details are so precise, so brilliantly executed, it felt like I was right there with Lauren in those beer-soaked, blood-stained music clubs of Wareham, England. In fact, right after I finished reading this book, I went and put on my favorite album from that generation—London Calling by The Clash. Since then, I’ve taken a break from my usual melancholy ambience, and embarked on a detour into the confrontational, hellishly-rampant sounds of The Sex Pistols, The Damned, even the Velvet Underground. I’d almost forgotten how much I used to love this music. It’s nice to be reminded. Guess there’s still a little punk left in me after all.

Anyone looking for a break from the genre-driven, series-saturated conventions of the book industry should go and pick up a copy of The Flamingo Circus by Kate Rigby today. While you’re at it, you might also want to check out her newest contribution, Down the Tubes, which I here packs an even harder punch. Happy Reading!

[Chantelle Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel details the turbulent life of the main character and narrator, Lauren. The story is told in diary form, first from Lauren's point of view when she is only seven years old. Brilliantly depicting exactly how such a young child would view and speak about the chaotic confines of her dysfunctional family, Lauren's character immediately draws you in. As she grows older, her narrative voice matures, as she longs to break free from her violent father and poverty stricken home. The book is set in the 1970's and 80's, and when Lauren discovers 'punk' her life is transformed. Although she bumps from one disaster to another, you can't help but admire her strength and her resolve to be herself. It would sound terribly cliche to call her 'feisty', as she is so much more than this. Yet again, Kate Rigby has created a believable and lovable character who I would like to know in real life and have a drink in the pub with! Always unconventional, rebelling against her family and society itself become the norm, as Lauren flees her home town to move into various squats in Bournemouth. Her diary entries are addictive reading. Funny, witty, blunt, and incredibly sad at times as it begins to dawn on the reader that all she is really looking for is love and acceptance. The ending, which I won't ruin, is also brilliantly apt. This author never fails to deliver; gripping storylines, realistic dialogue and characters that stay with you.

[Su · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up until I had finished this fabulous book as, having started it in the afternoon, I couldn't wait any longer to see how Lauren's adventures turned out.
This book is on my life-changers shelf as reading Kate's take on our shared history in early 80s Bournemouth and at the Third Side Club has inspired me to finally get further than page 1 of the novel I've been telling myself I'll write for at least 20 years.
Beyond the facts which I so fondly relate to, and as a voracious fiction reader I am also in love with Lauren and (most of) her family and friends and how, as usual, Kate draws you into the world which her characters inhabit and makes you care...enough to burn the midnight oil!
I am totally in awe of Kate's ability to make the ordinary day-to-day of life intriguing and enchanting. I love this book and if you were part of the Punk/Goth scene first time around or an Emo currently, you will too.

[Lisa of LaCreeperie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was given to me by a online pal who has very similar interests, and in the beginning I wasn't too sure if I was going to like it or not, as the writing was a bit ho-hum. But that's only because this is written as a young girl's diary, and progresses as she grows up. It's a very believable account of life as a punk in England in the late 1970's into the early 1980's, and I blasted through the second half of it easy as you please. It helps that I'm a lifelong Anglophile as well.

If you love a diary format and a relatable coming-of-age story, OR if you're a current or ex punk-rocker, I highly recommend picking it up.

[Steph Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book when I was a teen. Please tell me I'm not the only person who's read it. Oh, please.

[Matt Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great diary from the earliest days of British Punk! And the sad story of a girl just trying to be herself.

[Amy Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely magnificent read!

Rigby pens a remarkable story in Fall Of The Flamingo Circus. I have read a lot of work from this author before, and I really enjoyed each and everyone. The title makes you think, and it draws the reader in. It's a very raw and powerful story of Lauren, through her eyes. It's an amazing story that brings this young, yet strong girl's story come to life. There are ups and downs, especially with tin the battle against poverty and yes, even hunger. Lauren is one of those unforgettable characters that just deals and powers through whatever comes her way, making her life, her own. Again, Rigby writes so well, that the reader believes Lauren is actually behind the pen. Rigby doesn't just let Lauren tell her story, but show her story, which makes it more powerful and unforgettable. This book deserves a second read! (and maybe more). A very well-written story, and I enjoyed it. It is always a joy to read this author's stories. This author is not just a writer but a great storyteller. It's a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This author's characters develop and interacts well with the other characters. If I could give it more than five stars, I would. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeh I haven’t enjoyed diary style writing before but this was different ! I think was beautifully written ! The author has a really descriptive style ! It was also of interest to me as some of the story was set in Bournemouth in the 80s and referenced a club we used to go to ! This and other descriptions brought up memories ! Yes quite a bit of brutality but I personally feel very believable for those environments ! I found this inspiring and recommend it ! 😁

[Rachel Braunstadter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like I remembered

Nice glimpse Into a unique time.
The people are very much like real individuals I had known.
I was surprised how this book took me back to wheni read it in high school...l still would recommend this story it's worth interrupting your day

[Pilouetta · Rating 1 out of 5]

i picked this off my shelf because it is about punk rock. finished the first half during my two taco bell burritos. so far, so quick. torn stockings and dish soap hair.

i finished the book in concert to a couple tacos. i am not sure which was more satisfying. i was really hoping i'd get some auto-ethnographic type british punk rock details, but neither the book nor the main character seemed to grow up. and then, i read the author's bio, kate rigby is a psychologist whose patients are probably not dissimilar from her main character. and who does a punk hate more than a hippie? a poser.

BTW rigby uses the expression, "flogging a dead horse," twice (of course i kept track) which is once too vicious.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kate Rigby, Fall of the Flamingo Circus (Villard, 1990)

It's an interesting concept: the diary of a disaffected girl growing up in London in the seventies and becoming part of the genesis of the punk subculture. An insider's view of what really happened, if you will. And it might have worked, had the main character been at all worth caring about. It didn't help matters that the main character was unable to spell. One assumes this was a conceit used to show her arrested educational development, but it came off less as empathetic than it did as outright annoying. Pass on this one. (zero)

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book if you're interested in late '70's early '80's punk.

[Desiree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Destijds vond ik het geweldig, nu? Soms heel zwaar; depressie of melancholie.

[Awesome Indies Book Awards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome Indies Book Awards is pleased to include FALL OF THE FLAMINGO CIRCUS by KATE RIGBY in the library of Awesome Indies' Badge of Approval recipients.