Bookmark Interview: Christopher Walsh: Under the Electric Sky

Calgary freelance journalist Christopher Walsh took a page out of the Tom Wolfe’s bible on New Journalism a couple of years back, quitting his job as a reporter at an Alberta newspaper to run off and join the travelling carnival. The result is a fascinating and lively account of one of the biggest and longest running carnivals in Canada, the Bill Lynch Shows.

Walsh’s book is entitled Under the Electric Sky: The History of the Bill Lynch Shows, published by Nimbus Press.  The 31 year old Walsh joined the Bill Lynch carnival for a summer to study carnies and the lifestyle first hand, taking the writer back to his hometown of Halifax. Walsh appeared on Bookmark in May, 2011, talking about his adventures and the dying form of entertainment known as the carnival. You can hear that interview with clicking on the Title of this Blog Entry.

After Bill Lynch passed away in 1972, the Bill Lynch Shows were taken over by Soggy Reid. He maintained the Lynch tradition of showing charity to the less fortunate throughout the Maritimes. Several years after buying the carnival, Reid was devastated when an accident on one of the carnival’s rides killed a patron. The carnival almost folded as a result. However, the carnies all rallied around Reid and the carnival persevered, still doing its rounds to this day.