Arrington's story of a 1960s circus sideshow act in the American South finds its way to pose questions of faith with characters of unlikely beginnings, middles, and endings. No wonder that the stumbling town sheriff can make so little headway with his investigation, let alone pause overlong to reflect on any of it.

But then again, while Arrington is clearly onto something--teasing readers with references to foundational literary works which undermine tradition, a snake-eater who confesses only to a curious teen some over-arching spiritualism for her act, and a young man in not only an expected adolescent identity crisis but its accompanying one of faith--he holds his cards a bit too close. Not enough is offered for us to do much more than mouth the questions along with the characters. It's a difficult line to walk, the one between elusive ambiguity and outright preachiness; even so, the novel is short enough that Arrington could have offered a bit more elbow room for wondering.

Still, there is enough oddity of story here to interest, enough shifts in point of view to disorient, enough small-town nonsense to grasp the coming stench of soul-hollowing tourism. Is it any wonder that ennui misses those larger questions, too?