152,613 Words

Circus Bim Bom is a fictionalized account of a true story about Circus Bim Bom, the first privately owned Soviet Circus permitted to operate a tour of the United States in 1990, during the disintegration of the Soviet Empire. Incompetent Vegas mafia-connected producers mismanaged the Circus and went belly-up after only one performance. One mobster was a porn star. Circus Bim Bom was abandoned in Atlanta for six months. KGB agents followed them with instructions to prevent their defection. Gorbachev refused to bail them out for domestic political reasons. The Communist hardliners planned on using the Circus’s failure to weaken his regime. The Circus’s encounters with Americans during their stay are at the story’s heart. Some defected, and the majority returned to the Soviet Union, unaware that the USSR would soon cease to exist. Their defection was the largest group defection of Soviets to the West in the history of the USSR. Several romantic relationships emerged from the Circus’s encounter with Americans. The story is narrated by The Ringmaster, who frequently breaks the fourth wall and admits that he ‘embroiders the truth.’ His creed: don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.