Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children

Edition excerpt from Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children: A Cotton Candy Autopsy (1990): PAINTED SMILES OF AGONYWhat is it about clowns? They seem to be a happy enough bunch, delighted to suffer a pie-in-the-face or a seltzer-down-the-pants just to make us laugh. But what dark compulsion drives these men to hide behind their painted-on-smiles and rubber noses? What madness turns a man into a clown?A COTTON CANDY AUTOPSY follows a group of down-on-their-luck clowns as they escape a conflagration they may well have caused. On their trek they find death, madness, love, redemption, and finally, hope. Forced to uncover the humanity buried under the pain and greasepaint, each member of this diverse band ultimately finds the absolution he was searching for when he first set out on the road.A COTTON CANDY AUTOPSY reprints the first two chapters from the much-ballyhooed BEAUTIFUL STORIES FOR UGLY CHILDREN series, as well as presenting the all-new, long-awaited conclusion to the trilogy. Look inside, and find out what makes a man a clown.