The Wonders

Starred review from December 1, 2014
In a novel that feels both sharply realistic and wildly, indelibly imaginative, O'Reilly (The Fine Color of Rust, 2012, etc.) offers a story about the stars of an impossible, glamorous freak show that sidesteps any expectations of sentimental quirk with wit and deep feeling. The Wonders are three people who survive miraculous medical treatments and are left with unusual, beautiful physical anomalies that thrust them into a world of celebrity. Leon Hyland, a lonely and bookish man from Australia, is on his third heart, a mechanical metal implant suspended in a hole that goes straight through his chest. Kathryn Damon, a prickly and voluptuous Irishwoman, undergoes an experimental treatment for Huntington's disease that brings her health and covers her body in black lamb's wool. Christos Petridis, a volatile Greek performance artist, has metal wings transplanted into his back. Oddities and freaks, they find themselves brought together by Rhona Burke, a brash lady impresario who fashions them into international stars and makes them both fabulously wealthy and hysterically adored. The novel stays close to Leon, following him as he struggles against hesitation and anxiety, longing so desperately to be seen and then slamming into the treachery of fame. It unfurls in vivid, precisely imagined images that give even the most fantastical details a solid reality. The characters, with all their unlikely histories, have the weight and imperfections of real people, and the reader can follow them with pleasure, always trusting O'Reilly to care for their sympathies with humor, charm and a broad range of feeling, taking them from delirious circus scenes to genuine tragedy. The impossible slides skillfully into the believable here; O'Reilly's delightful novel never shirks its responsibility to emotional truth as it tells a story about being known and being different.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 15, 2014
After two failed heart transplants, Leon finds that his only hope is a procedure in which he is given a heart that is completely mechanical and visible through a hole in his chest. He draws the attention of Rhona Burke, an American promoter, who takes Leon from Australia to the U.S. and installs him in her house. There he meets two other amazing individuals, Kathryn, whose medical treatment has left her covered in a pelt of black wool, and Christos, a performance artist with wings grafted onto his body. Rhona, who grew up in the circus, plans to turn them into a spectacle of wonder and prestige, not a damn sideshow, and under her management, the Wonders achieve incredible celebrity. But they also evoke hostility from, among others, disability rights activists and religious fanatics. Some crucial events are presented at secondhand, leaving the reader feeling a bit removed, but those who like fiction that is quirky and imaginative will appreciate Australian author O'Reilly's (The Fine Color of Rust, 2012) modern fable about the nature of difference, fame, and human dignity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)