You don’t come across truly exceptional books very often – I guess that’s why they call them “exceptional” – but last month I enjoyed a real special treasure.

Edward Hoagland’s CAT MAN won the National Book Award when it was first published in 1954, and recently came out as a classy trade paperback, but I’d never heard of it till I turned up a sleazy reprint in a local used-book joint. It’s a Circus book, and most Circus books are either light, fluffy and aimed at the juvenile trade, or down, dirty and depraved, like NIGHTMARE ALLEY. There’s plenty of depravity in CAT MAN (The hero starts his day wading through blood in urine-soaked shoes.) but Hoagland also conveys an odd pleasure to be found in a life lived beneath contempt: a succinct, visceral pleasure in the feel of the sun on one’s face, the sensation of running a hand through thick fur, the satisfaction of bonding with a warm-blooded animal, the tangy smell of cheap food… contrasted very effectively with just-as-sharp passages about being cold and wet and hungry, and I mean, when Hoagland describes hunger, you feel your stomach rumble.

What plot there is consists of a day behind the scenes as a circus sets up, alternated with flashbacks of different stands at different times in distant cities. Through it all, Hoagland’s prose is sharp as a broken bottle and bright as a shiny new dime. And he can create characters I’ll remember long after I’ve forgotten a lot of real people: Hoagland doesn’t ennoble the winos, con artists and mental defectives who make up his cast, but he makes them authentic pulp-heroes; There’s a major player called the Chief who I swear stepped right out of this book and into Kesey’s cuckoo’s nest. In all, this is a book to savor while reading and pass along to others.