The story of Ania Liszak and Teddy is fiction, a moment in history recreated by author Michael Downs, who grew up in Hartford and worked for The Hartford Courant. In his short story, “Ania,” the fire nearly kills both and leaves them scarred in different ways: Teddy’s mother enjoys the beautiful strangeness of the scar on her face, but the patches across Teddy’s body inspire cruel schoolmates to call him “Lizard Liszak.” Over time, his mother transforms her pain into drama, while Teddy, having no memory of that day, seeks ways to return to it.

The story is only one of ten in The Greatest Show (Louisiana University Press), Downs’ recently published, acclaimed collection of short stories related to the day of the fire and its long aftermath, along with the emotions and collective memories it produced.

On the anniversary of the fire – Friday, July 6, at 5:30 p.m. — Downs will speak on the Hartford Circus Fire, describe his literary take on it, and read from the book at The Mark Twain House & Museum. A reception at 5:00 will precede the talk, and a book signing will follow.

The event is free.

Novelist Stewart O’Nan, himself the author of an important book on the fire (The Circus Fire: A True Story), says “Michael Downs has penned a heartbreaking paean to an overlooked American city, using its circus fire as a starting point. Having begun his career at the Hartford Courant, the author is quickly staking his claim as this capital’s William Kennedy.”

Sheri Joseph, author of Stray, calls The Greatest Show “The work of a mature, compassionate, incisive writer with a talent for discovering strange surprises at the periphery of tragedy.”

Michael Downs, a Hartford native, is the author of House of Good Hope: A Promise for a
Broken City, which won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. A recipient of a literary fiction fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and is an assistant professor of English at Towson University.

Downs was born in Hartford. He says that when he studied literary writing, a mentor told him “We write from where we get the wound,” which led Downs to focus on his hometown.

He has won literary fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts. He teaches creative writing at Towson University in Maryland and lives in Baltimore, with his wife, Sheri Venema, also a former Courantreporter and editor.