The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel

Finalist for the 2002 Commonwealth Writer Prize and the Trillium Award.

'You can't mix tigers and husbands. And anyhow, I prefer the tigers.' Barely five feet tall, suicidally courageous, obsessed with tigers and sexually eccentric, Mabel Stark was the greatest female tiger trainer in history. Clad in her leather suits and married five times, she was the Mae West of tiger taming. In the 1910s and 1920s, when circus was the most popular entertainment in America Mabel Stark was the biggest attraction for the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus. This vibrant and moving fictional autobiography begins in

1968. Mabel is turning 80 and is about to lose her job. Faced with the loss of her beloved cats, she looks back on her life, her escapades and tragedies, her love affairs with tigers and men. She confronts her darkest secrets, her guilt at committing "the worst thing one person can do to another". Now, with the end of life in sight, there is one thing above all else she needs to do. Mabel wants to confess. Exuberant and inventive, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark transports its readers to the carnival world of the Big Top to an age before cinema and television, when circus performers were superstars.