We Are All His Creatures

Tales of P. T. Barnum, the Greatest Showman

By: Deborah Noyes

Narrated by: Jess Nahikian, Carly Robins, Lauren Ezzo, Andrew Eiden, Will Ropp, Sarah Zimmerman

In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family - and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on.

Much has been written about P. T. Barnum - legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex. P. T. Barnum’s two families - his family at home, including his two wives and his daughters, and his family at work, including Little People, a giantess, an opera singer, and many sideshow entertainers - suffered greatly from his cruelty and exploitation. Yet, at the same time, some of his performers, such as General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton), became wealthy celebrities who were admired and feted by presidents and royalty. In this collection of interlinked stories, Deborah Noyes digs deep into what is known about the people in Barnum’s orbit and imagines their personal lives, putting front and center the complicated joy and pain of what it meant to be one of Barnum’s “creatures.”

©2020 by Deborah Noyes, original book published by Candlewick Press. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"In this interlinked story collection, an ensemble of narrators takes on the voices of 11 people—some real, some invented—who are trapped in the orbit of P.T. Barnum.… The narrators, most taking on two different roles, succeed at making each character distinct while creating a thread of melancholy that magnifies their similarities. Amid uniformly excellent performances, particular standouts include Will Ropp's world-weary young General Tom Thumb, Jess Nahikian's sweetly gentle, lonely giantess, and Andrew Eiden's aggressively unhappy Robert Lincoln." - AudioFile Magazine