A rich tapestry of romance, illusory science, criminal trickery and human intrigue. Let the show begin. (Kirkus). In the late 1860s, as America was recovering from Lincoln's assassination, a man named P. T. Barnum opened a museum in New York City. Filled with oddities from around the world, it also hosted a number of sideshow freaks — including The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno's narrator, the Human Skeleton. This atmospheric and utterly original story of how he fell in love with the Bearded Lady is a moving novel about human appetites and longings, exploring what it means to be profoundly unique — and demonstrating love's power to transcend even the greatest divisions. Bryson is bedazzling, a real writer of extraordinary bravado. (Keith Donohue, author of Angels of Destruction and The Stolen Child).