Circus of Souls: How I Discovered We are All Freaks Passing as Normal

Circus of Souls: How I Discovered We are All Freaks Passing as Normal At the beginning of the publicity tour for her National Best-Selling Book Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey through Autism, Dr. Dawn Prince-Hughes believed she might be seen by the sensational media amd the public alike as a kind of modern day freak, much as the old-time side show denizens Percilla Monkey Girl, Grace the Mule-Faced Woman, or Millie Christine the Two-Headed Nightingale. What she found instead was that, like her, everyone she met on the tour – no matter how “normal” – had deep disfigurements and spiritual twisting that they tried to hide while longing to be loved. This book tells those stories, interweaving the history of the American freak show, and questions ideas of normalcy, freakishness, and disability.