The Trapeze Diaries

By Marie Carter

"THE TRAPEZE DIARIES is a slight and a good book. Not a slightly good book: a very good book and a very slight book. It consists of only 94 slim pages, some with only one or two lines per page.
Marie Carter, a young woman born in Scotland, now living in Manhattan, has real talent and more wisdom than many her age (mid-twenties). The wisdom comes, in part, because she lost her father at far too early an age and he is a large part of this memoir in quite surprising ways.
The book, more of a journal than a diary (i.e., more intimate, reflective), revolves around two major themes: adapting the loss of her father (he is still with her) and overcoming her fear to do something extremely daring - master the trapeze. Although she has no intention of running away and joining the circus, this activity is one that appeals to her immensely. She is initially scared of heights and of being upside down. She can t do a proper headstand. Although, as a child, she was never athletic or daring, somehow she grasps the courage to take on such a formidable task and becomes positively addicted to it. She works out with circus stars and beginners alike and takes yoga on the side. She suffers pains, aches and bruises, and she progresses to yet more tricky, acrobatic maneuvers....
I think we all need to keep our eyes on this imaginative, bold woman's writing. I predict she may well have a bright literary future. " —Excerpted from curledup.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hanging Loose Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781931236843

Marie Carter

Marie Carter is a Scottish-born writer, tour guide, and tour guide developer who has been based in New York City for the last twenty-three years. Fascinated by New York City’s macabre and little-known histories in her writing and life, she is a licensed tour guide, as well as researcher and developer with Boroughs of the Dead, a walking tour company that specializes in strange, macabre, and ghostly walking tours of New York City. Marie leads tours in Astoria, Roosevelt Island, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. She is also a frequent guest lecturer at QED Astoria. Her first book, based on her experiences in learning trapeze, The Trapeze Diaries, was published by Hanging Loose Press. Her novel Holly’s Hurricane was published in 2018 and was a finalist for the 2019 Montaigne Medal. She was also the editor of Word Jig: New Fiction from Scotland (Hanging Loose Press). She has been a guest speaker on NPR’s Ask Me Another, BBC Radio Lincolnshire, The Expat Chit Chat Show, and Talking Hart Island, and she has been written about or featured in the New York Times, Huffington Post, QNS, Queens Gazette, and many other media outlets. She has made an appearance on PIX11. Her work has been published in The Best of Creative Nonfiction (Norton) and Nineteenth Century Magazine, a publication of the Victorian Society in America.

Book preview