The Forever Big Top

by Jeremy Thompson

After what turns out to be his group Sirkus Kult’s final concert, clown hip-hopper Freshy Jest finds himself bedding a voluptuous groupie. Unfortunately, the gal’s sexual philosophy includes postcoital “double suicide,” and her butcher knife makes flesh confetti of Freshy’s abdomen.

Transported via death into a circus tent afterlife, the rapper encounters enough clowns to colonize a continent—populating amusement rides, humorously cavorting, and playing games of skill and chance. Before long, he makes many strange, funny new friends.

But even in the hereafter, one can die. Enduring a succession of gruesome demises, each of which drops him to a lower tent level, Freshy tours realms of shifting geometry, backwards colors, self-aware balloon animals, scalding lipstick currents, and grisly gluttony. Menaced by serial killer clowns and even eerier entities, he seeks to return to Earth.

Will Freshy Jest escape the Forever Big Top, and come back to life, or is he destined to reach the great tent’s nethermost level?

132 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2018

About the author

Jeremy Thompson is the indie horror fictionist whose mind and fingers united to birth The Phantom Cabinet, Let's Destroy Investutech, Victor Dickens and the Silent Minority, The Land of Broken Sky, Outréverse, and Vortex Era. His stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 2 and 4, Into the Darkness Volume 1, DarkFuse, Journal of Experimental Fiction, This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With, and Brewtality, and been collected in Sweet Chuckling Morbidity, A Carcass of Genre, and Toby Chalmers Commits “Career” Suicide: The Complete Saga. A San Diego State University graduate, Jeremy resides in Oceanside, California.

Reviews

[Daniel Volpe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting premise, but it kind of fell flat for me. Freshy is murdered and ends up in clown hell. In Hell you can still be killed, thrusting you into other levels of Hell. The book started off great, funny, violent, sexual and then started to stagnate. The levels of hell were interesting, but I didn't feel like the plot was going anywhere. I did enjoy the imagery and the writer has some talent. I'll be looking for more of his work in the future.

[Slim Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woah!!! This was crazy! First book from this author on godless! Think insane clown possee meets dante’s inferno.

Loved the rap/juggalo talk. Very creative and imaginative!

Not to extreme if your looking for that , but this short story was really great!

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.

If an ICP video clip on a potent mix of drugs sounds like a good time to you, you'll probably enjoy this. I liked the idea behind the book but something extremely rare for me happened while I was reading this story, I wished the pacing was a little bit slower. As it is there were levels I barely even remember being there so I feel like the author really trimmed every last ounce of fat he could from the story. I enjoyed the bleak ending.

[Kimberly Spookybookwurm · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite characters were all the different clown animals, in all their forms. Sally Slitz and Titsy Ditzy always made me laugh, I also really liked them. I liked learning about all the levels and the clown that belonged to them, I thought it was neat to learn about how many there are.
I thought this one was very unique and entertaining, and I enjoyed everything about this one. This was a lot of fun! This is one I've returned to a few times.

[Mrsgmamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty interesting. It really makes you think about what really happens in the afterlife. The different levels, definitely interesting.

[Aiden Messer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that was fun! Great concept

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic! The writing was very clever and had me unable to put it down. I will definitely be getting more work by Jeremy Thompson in the future, because I loved his particular writing style.

The plot was like a wonderful
mixture of Insane Clown Posse and Dante's Inferno.

I especially liked the main character Freshy Jest, but all of the characters are written well.

The ones he meets in his journey through the different levels are well executed, and there are so many different types of clowns from happy, to sad, to hobo, to terrifying.

The levels of the Forever Big Top are wonderfully gruesome and grisly,
and I thought each one was better than the last.

The name of the clown groupies I found particularly brilliant, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The ending was amazing, and surprising. This book is a perfect Halloween read, and it's a great gift for any friends you have that are scared of clowns.

I received an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion. I love anything having to do with creepy clowns, and can be rather picky about it. The author had some big red shoes to fill for me, but he not only managed to do that, but to earn a huge red foam nose also.

[Sam Cockrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUPER FUN! Quick read, like the circus…. But levels of hell. It’s okay they deserve it though…. Probably.

[Daniel Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was definitely a trip. It was very well written, especially the changes of the different levels.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about clowns and supernatural elements? Of course I had to read this one!

I absolutely loved this book. It was unique, funny, brutal, and I had to know what happened next!

4/5

[Brett Grossmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining. Never dull. The levels of hell never make any sense though. Why would someone that’s a killer wind up in the same place as the victim? The levels just roll out based on the stories needs and never based on common sense. Easily remedied with some plot work. At least the bad attempts at rap lyrics petered out at the beginning. They werent any good. They were laid down like wood. Written like limericks. They dropped like bad bricks. Ahem

[Ami Beyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the premise of this story and would have appreciated a slower stroll through the levels to get to know more about the depravity existing there. I also struggled a bit with the dialogue. Overall a decent gross out.

[Ashley Hana · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a mad fever dream. Very creative! Freshy was just infuriatingly annoying and not funny..

[Kate Victoria RescueandReading · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quirky, unique short read. I absolutely loved “The Forever Big Top”, from Freshy, to all the different levels of clown hell. Props to Jeremy Thompson for creating such an imaginative afterlife for clowns!