Susan Meyers

Jul 9, 2024 | pshares.org | Susan Meyers |Rebecca Makkai

If there’s one thing you learn working on a carnival, it’s how to be invisible. Despite all that bling and zip and wow, a carny’s goal is to straddle the distance between spectacle and crowd: to entice people toward the ticket booth, then slip into the background. In my family, it’s a long-standing tradition. Tricksters and circus folk, we’ve made our living on the road for generations, and growing up on that carnival route, I got much more used to being looked at than seen.