Dive into the bizarre and electrifying world of Jellyboy, the Clown of Danger and Science. A twisted journey of freakish feats, surreal adventures, and heart-pounding near-death experiences awaits you in this riveting autobiography.

Memoirs of a Coney Island Clown: Jellyboy’s Sideshow Saga

Eric Broomfield, Outside Talker Press, 2024.

Reviewer: Jenn O. Cide, Actress and Sideshow MC

“A raw, psychedelic trip through the outsider world of sideshow performance and the autobiographical journey of becoming a professional sword swallowing clown.”

With a laudatory foreword by the esteemed actor and artist Mat Fraser, Memoirs of a Coney Island Clown catapults readers into the kaleidoscopic world of Jellyboy the Clown, a renegade wizard weirdo on a mission. Fueled by the brutal suicide of his older brother, Jellyboy strikes a pact with the Misfit Mother of Death to create an absurdist freakshow troupe, the Squidling Brothers Circus Sideshow.

We peek between our fingers as he describes sword swallowing injuries, hold our breath with him as he barely survives an intense house fire, and laugh nervously as he fights off bouncers with beer bottles.

Jellyboy parades us through the avant-punk underground performance scenes of the noughties in Philadelphia, New York, Berlin and beyond. He adventures around the globe with performers like the Enigma, Red Stuart, Albert Cadabra, Tyler Fyre, Donny Vomit, and Insectavora. Jelly meets and conspires with troupes like the Swingshift Sideshow, Disgraceland, and Pain Solution.

And with honest humor, Jellyboy unflinchingly gives us the truth. Your heart blossoms alongside his as he falls in love with sword swallower Betty Bloomerz, and you mourn the disintegration of his psycho-jazz band the Hydrogen Jukebox. You meet the other global oddities in the Squidling Brothers, including blood brother Matterz and a cavalcade of adopted siblings like the Illustrated Penguin Boy, Princess Tweedle Needle, and Roc Roc-It.

We learn that Jellyboy studied modern dance, and it shows in his ability to tap dance through a life full of frenetic and poetic energy. He chronicles his choreographed and improvisational dances with fire, death, love, and pain.

Even as he describes scenes of seeming madness, he always gives his reader a window into the “why” of being a clown who plays with dangerous things. It totally makes sense why he swallows a cane sword, why he only uses clean medical gear to remove staples from his scrotum, and why he chooses a pink frilly dress to dance in. Even his hallucinations while in a medically-induced coma make an odd sort of sense as Jellyboy dips you in and out of his consciousness.

The pace of the book has you gasping for breath while you feel Jellyboy try to keep his promise to his deceased brother, all while hemorrhaging art and time, struggling to book and rebook shows, managing physical and mental trauma, and keeping an open heart through it all.

Although there are some structural issues with the book, the narrative is intoxicating, swirling you deeper into Jelly’s world as time progresses. If you’ve ever talked to him or seen him perform, you can hear every written word in his hypnotic voice, his nearly sing-song cadence slipping in and out of psychedelic rhythms.

This is not a memoir bloated with ego and hubris: this is a painfully honest work that lets us peek into Jellyboy’s brave and kaleidoscopic soul, and gives us privileged insight into a bizarre and beautiful world. This results in us really wanting to bear witness to his tribulations and jubilations, and you feel yourself cheering him on as disaster and poetry strike him again and again.

The book reads like you’re peeking over the shoulder of Anthony Bourdain as a circus freak while he’s getting stoned with Hunter S. Thompson as he writes Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and it’s beautiful.

This is a precious window into a rare world populated by freaks and iconoclasts, a first person rollercoaster through this most recent era of sideshow history. Through Jellyboy’s eyes you see sideshow empires rise that are now considered the very best in the world.

Although there are descriptions of the mechanics of the standard sideshow stunts, this is certainly no how-to guide. This book is recommended for curious bystanders, sideshow aficionados, lovers of the avant-garde mystic arts, and purveyors of vaudevillian road chaos.

Jellyboy: The Heartbeat of a Modern Day Showman

A Clown’s Journey Through Passion, Peril, and the Undying Spirit of the Sideshow

Eric Broomfield, Outside Talker Press, 2024.

Reviewer: Captain Frodo, Master Showman and host of the Way of the Showman

“JellyBoy is a wild beautiful story of what it takes to be a modern day showman. It’s a wake up call to anyone who has let passion wilt.”

A captivating tale of finding and following one’s passion. Of seeking what you love along the way of the Showman.

What makes a young man pledge to dedicate his life to being a carny? The answer will break your heart.

Told from the point of view of a clown dedicated to mastering the arts of the sideshow – come what may; and what may come – will blow your mind. Through trials and tribulations more frightening and formidable than any of the freakshow stunts Jelly Boy rises to sideshow superstar.

Great success in underground clubs, fights, poetic clown antics, fire, hooks, constant travel, and shows, shows always more shows. A carnival apocalypse told by one who triumphantly, but barely, survived to share with us an epic adventure.

Jellyboy is a wild, and beautiful story of what it takes to be a modern day showman. It’s a wakeup call to anyone who has let passion wilt.

Jellyboy tells the unvarnished and beautiful truth of what it takes to live your life as a showman. The glories of a thrilled crowd, the triumph of, after so much discomfort achieving one’s dream of becoming a sword-swallower, and the inevitable heartaches along the way.

It’s a well written page turner, and a veritable who’s who of the underground world of the sideshow. It’s a glimpse into a subculture, an undercurrent of entertainers whose art form, by its very nature, aims to give the spotlight to the misfits.

Of which Jellyboy is an outstanding specimen.

It lays out in exciting and funny details of his journey from novice to master in the dark arts of chaos and carnival. It’s the tale of an outsider giving the world the middle finger and getting paid to do it. F

or those who’s been in the business this well-crafted and engaging story is like a mirror; a story that makes you feel that fire that burned in you when you were caught up in the days that would shape the artist and person you became.

For the townies and the normies it’s a glimpse into a globe spanning underground of entertainers pursuing an art form you barely know exists.

Jellyboy places sideshow centre ring and tells a tale that will make you gasp, cry, and ask yourself if you gave up on your dreams to soon.