Alas, Dreamland

Dreamland opened before the paint dried: a million electric bulbs, a tower you could see for miles, a ride called Hell Gate, and, between the lions and the roller coasters, Dr. Couney's exhibit of real premature babies in glass boxes, a quarter to look. Minnie Thompson is the nurse who keeps them breathing. She's engaged to George Dressler, the German lion tamer whose act anchors the park, and she has learned to hold her breath every time the cage door closes behind him.

Then James Harris arrives to keep the wiring alive. He's careful and quiet, carrying his dead brother's stopped watch and a name that isn't quite his own. Over seven seasons of storms, winter repairs, bad money and one lion that won't forgive anybody, the three of them circle each other in a place built to look permanent and made of fresh lumber and electricity. The book opens on the night it all burns. The rest is how they got there.