Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and mind as has this one. Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree show's smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes and the stuff of nightmare.
"Combining his unpretentious style with the rhythms and tones of 1940s radio, actor Paul Giamatti smoothly creates the uniquely American feel of Ray Bradbury's 1962 classic dark fantasy. It's a week before Halloween, ominous clouds have gathered, and The Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to town. Only Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, two 13-year-old best friends, seem to notice that the carnival rides, mirror maze, and magical carousel might mean big trouble for the good citizens of Green Town, Illinois. The tension in Giamatti's voice appropriately heightens as the boys take on the awful specters of the Illustrated Man, the Skeleton Man, and Mr. Electrico. A thunderous swirling concoction of boyhood adventure, nostalgia, and modern horror delivered by a consummate actor. B.P. � AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine"
