The First Bright Thing: I wish I liked this book more

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson

Published in 2023, J.R. Dawson’s The First Bright Thing is a solid entry in the subgenre of magical carnivals, joining The Night Circus, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bacchanal, and Mechanique, among others. Once again, good versus evil plays out in the center ring, against the backdrop of big tops and midways. Dawson adds one new ingredient to the mix, time travel, for an engaging story that didn’t completely satisfy me.

I am in the minority on this; Goodreads gives the book a solid four stars. This is a book of “vibes,” and the vibes are definitely here. For me, the tale felt derivative, and I yearned for more character development.

It’s 1926. Rin (short for Ringmaster), Mauve, and Odette run Windy Van Hooten’s Circus of the Fantasticals. The train that carries the circus shows up magically “where it’s needed,” apparently even when there aren’t train tracks. Nearly every performer in the circus is a Spark, a name given to folks with strange, magical skills who started appearing in 1916, during the first World War. Rin can jump herself and others—even trains—through time and space; Mauve can read time, past and future, like a book, and Odette is an amazing healer who has another secret ability as well. The circus seeks out people who need comfort or guidance, jumps to that place and performs a show that is aimed at that one person. Rin sees this as doing a mitzvah, an act of good. They are pursued by the Carnival King and his black-tented circus, a show comprised of Sparks who have embraced selfishness, cruelty and evil at the direction of the King.

Nearly everyone in Rin’s circus is intersectional; as well as Sparks, they are queer people, people of color, or people with mobility or other issues. The circus is well-drawn as a place of safety for those who aren’t allowed to fit in easily in other places.

J.R. Dawson

Despite the personal threat of the Carnival King to Rin, the trio first spends some time trying to figure out how to stop World War II, which Mauve has seen in the future. This takes up about the first quarter of the book, along with Dawson’s attempts to depict the shock and PTSD left by the first war. No one, even our magical three, can believe that humanity would engage in another global catastrophe after the first one, and I thought Dawson made that attitude believable.

Via flashbacks, we also see the genesis of the Carnival King. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I’ll settle for saying the Carnival King’s ability is exactly that of one of the villains of the Netflix Marvel Heroes TV series of a few years ago.

I loved the ideas here, and the thought of moving forward in time to change things instead of backward was a novel one. There are pieces of nice description, although while we see a lot about the carnival, we don’t see a lot of costumes or acts. Odette is a trapeze artist, but we never see her on the trapeze. Mauve sings. That’s all we know about their circus talents. We never learn how the three of them met, or how they managed to buy a carnival. Quite a bit of time is devoted to Rin, but we see nothing of Mauve’s past, or Odette’s. Frankly, given the guilt and self-loathing Rin feels after she escapes the King the first time, her relationship with Odette seems nearly impossible, but there is no real conflict and no doubt. Rin has no problem with trust, which made no sense to me.

Jo, a teenager Rin rescued early in the book, is passionate, defiant and rebellious, but her motivations didn’t convince me of the actions she takes near the end of the book. The ultimate solution to the Carnival King problem was neat if predictable.

Basically, I approached this book with high expectations because it was a carnival book, and it didn’t completely satisfy. I like the prose, and I will definitely take a look at the next thing J.R. Dawson writes.