The Styx (here, Sticks) is in Greek mythology the river that separates the world of the living from the Underworld. Similarly, Lethe is the river in Greek mythology whose water gives the gift of forgetting.

“Jefferson & Norvell” are perhaps better known as Laurel and Hardy. The scene in Chapter Five of the Kid hanging from the clock tower is inspired by the famous scene in Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923).

Various clowns, magicians and circus folk lend their names to places and features on the Escapement, including Bobo, Emmett Kelly, Nevil Maskelyne, the Fratellinis, and many others. The Big Rock Candy Mountain comes from the classic 1928 Harry McClintock song.

Many of my books begin years earlier with a short story. In this case, “High Noon in Clown Town,” published in Postscripts #9, edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers, to whom my thanks, as always.

About the Author

Internationally renowned author Lavie Tidhar grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and has lived all over the world, including South Africa, Vanuatu, Laos and the UK.

Tidhar won the 2012 World Fantasy Award for his novel Osama, a complex tale about the war on terror. That same year, he also won a British Fantasy Award for Best Novella and a British Science Fiction Award for Best Nonfiction. These were followed by the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize–winning and Premio Roma nominee A Man Lies Dreaming. Tidhar has, further, been compared to Philip K. Dick by the Guardian, and to Kurt Vonnegut by Locus.

Tidhar’s breakout novel, Central Station, received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Neukom Literary Arts Award; it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke and Locus awards. It has been translated into ten languages. His next novel, Unholy Land, was shortlisted for the Locus, Campbell, Sidewise and Dragon awards, and was on best-of-the-year lists from NPR Books, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Tidhar’s first middle-reader novel, Candy, was published by Scholastic UK in 2018. His full-length graphic novel with Paul McCaffrey, Adler, was published in 2020. He is also a columnist for the Washington Post.

Lavie Tidhar currently lives in London.