Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Olympia Knife
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://alysiaconstantine.com/
CITY: Nyack
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married.
EDUCATION:Attended Carnegie Mellon University; Sarah Lawrence College, M.F.A.; Stony Brook University, doctoral studies.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and novelist. Formerly a college professor, including a professor at Mysterious Art College, New York, NY; also worked as a baker and a cook.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Alysia Constantine is a writer and novelist. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and once studied to be a concert violinist. Constantine has taught media, cinema, writing, and cultural studies in college. Her debut novel was published in 2016.
Sweet
Sweet revolves around a lonely baker named Jules Burns and an unhappy accountant named Teddy Cruz. Jules is still mourning the loss of his husband, Andy, when a stranger takes Teddy into his bakery one day. Once there, the bakery’s barista, Trice, not only serves Teddy a cupcake to brighten his day but also begins matchmaking plans to bring Jules and Teddy together.
Readers may “enjoy how the narrator breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to them,” wrote Jessie Potts for RT Book Reviews Online. A Publishers Weekly contributor called Sweet “a dessert that’s well worth skipping dinner for.”
Olympia Knife
In her next book, Olympia Knife, Constantine sets the story at the beginning of the twentieth century in a traveling circus called Stephen’s Great Attraction. Olympia Knife was born into a family of circus acrobats and is considered circus royalty due to her parents, the famous Flying Knives. Although Olympia appears to lack talent for the trapeze, she does have another quality. Olivia at times literally disappears. “Out of costume, she enjoys a different kind of invisibility, deemed as ‘plain,'” wrote Claire Foster for Forward Reviews Online.
As the novel begins, Olympia is standing on the trapeze platform when she witnesses her parents suddenly vanish in midair during a performance. Fortunately, Olympia has support via her close-knit circus family, from Madam Barbue the Bearded Woman to Robin the Rubber Boy. These performers “have interesting stories of their own,” noted Foster in Forward Reviews Online. As the novel progresses, it turns out that the disappearance of Olympia’s parents is only the beginning of the mystery as one by one other members of the circus suddenly begin to vanish. Meanwhile, Olympia finds herself developing feelings for a mysterious newcomer to the circus, Diamond the Danger Eater, a woman who has a sword-swallowing act.
Eventually, Olympia begins to assume a new identity as Nova the Half Man. Then she suddenly finds her livelihood threatened when the circus appears to be closing down. “The world of Olympia Knife is one that goes beyond genre definitions and expectations,” wrote RT Book Reviews Online contributor, noting the novel “addresses issues of queerness and marginalization.” Miriam Joy, writing for the Miriam Joy Reads website, remarked: Olympia Knife is “a strange, compelling book.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2017, review of Olympia Knife.
Publishers Weekly, December 21, 2015, review of Sweet, p. 139.
ONLINE
Alysia Constantine Website, https://alysiaconstantine.com (May 27, 2018).
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (May 27, 2018), Claire Foster, review of Olympia Knife.
Miriam Joy Reads, https://miriamjoyreads.wordpress.com/ (January 12, 2018), Miriam Joy, review of Olympia Knife.
RT Book Reviews Online, https://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (May 27, 2018), John Jacobson, review of Olympia Knife; Jessie Potts, review of Sweet.
Alysia Constantine is a writer. She lives in Nyack, NY with her wife, two dogs and a cat. She is the author of Sweet (February 2016) and Olympia Knife (November 2017), both from Interlude Press. In another life, Alysia was a professor of humanities and media studies at an art college. In an earlier life, she was a professor of other stuff in other places. In a life before that, she was a baker/cook. In a life even before that, she was a miserable queer teen studying to be a concert violinist, and before that, she was Joan of Arc (though there’s no evidence for that).
About Alysia Constantine
Work
Mysterious Art College in NYC
Professor · Brooklyn, New York
Professing on media, cinema, writing and cultural studies. Actually, professing on whatever they'll let me profess on.
Self-Employed
Owner
Education
Stony Brook University
1999 to 2006 · Stony Brook, New York
ABD on a PhD in Comparative Literature, abandoned before it was too late!
Carnegie Mellon University
Creative writing · Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sarah Lawrence College
MFA · Poetry · Bronxville, New York
Current City and Hometown
Nyack, New York
Current city
Brooklyn, New York
Hometown
About Alysia
Writer, teaching to get by, dreaming of running away with th circus or something cool like that. First novel, SWEET, is coming out from Interlude Press in February.
Constantine, Alysia: OLYMPIA KNIFE
Kirkus Reviews. (Sept. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Constantine, Alysia OLYMPIA KNIFE Interlude Press (Adult Fiction) $16.99 11, 2 ISBN: 978-1-945053-27-6
Born into a family of circus acrobats, Olympia Knife is unique in more ways than one. As she struggles to control her tendency toward literal invisibility, she must also navigate her burgeoning love for the newest star of the circus: Diamond the Danger Eater.Constantine's (Sweet, 2016) second novel opens with the midact, midair disappearance of Alban and Julia, the Flying Knifes, as their young daughter watches from the trapeze platform. Olympia has been raised in the tightknit nucleus of the Stephens Great Attraction traveling circus, where her sporadic transparency blends in with the unique gifts of the fabulous Minnie the Fat Lady, Madame Barbue the Bearded Woman, Robin the Rubber Boy, and many others. As the book progresses, she is forced to confront the impermanence of even the closest of these relationships as, one by one, the members of her circus family begin to vanish into the ether. At the same time, Olympia finds herself falling in love with a mysterious newcomer--Diamond, who performs a dashing sword-swallowing act--and transforming her own identity into that of Nova the Half Man. As she struggles to navigate her unfamiliar emotions, her fluctuating visibility, and the unravelling of her livelihood when the circus grinds to a denuded halt, Olympia must thrust herself into the forefront of her life in order to preserve her own place within it. Though there is a tremendous amount happening in this novel, the similarity in the back stories of the characters, as well as a tendency to narrate even the most climactic of injuries, consummations, and murders in the same expository tone, renders the book hazy. The powerful central theme is similarly blurred by inconsistencies in the main characters' development (Olympia is both mousy and bold, Diamond both daring and prone to collapse in indecisive tears) and plot progression issues that find characters spending entire chapters rising from bed only to sink back into the same bed, exhausted, without much happening in between. A book that intends to balance on the fine wire of the exploitative-freak-show trope in order to render a point about inclusion and identity but succeeds instead in crafting a series of more-or-less familiar freak-show character sketches.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Constantine, Alysia: OLYMPIA KNIFE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504217707/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6a092f6c. Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A504217707
Sweet
Publishers Weekly. 262.52 (Dec. 21, 2015): p139.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Sweet
Alysia Constantine. Interlude (interludepress.com), $16.99 trade paper (246p) ISBN 978-1-941530-61-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The narrator of Constantine's debut--who's flirtatious, candid, and more than a little word-drunk--spins ethereal candy floss that is all romance, endlessly surprising, and nothing like any genre offering this season. Jules Burns is a New York City baker, just emerging from mourning for his husband, and his decadent confections receive the book's most explicit prose. Sweetly melancholy Teddy Flores is fading into his accounting job until a stranger yanks him into Jules's bakery. 'Trice, the bakery's uncannily perspicacious barista, ministers to Teddy with a cupcake and immediately begins to matchmake between Teddy and Jules. The knowingly Dickensian narrator stage manages throughout, assessing developments, taking the reader to task for wanting to "skip ahead to the good part," and delivering insights of aching beauty on page after page. A touch of the metaphysical sits a little restlessly next to the Internet flirtations and kitchen seductions, but this remains a dessert that's well worth skipping dinner for. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sweet." Publishers Weekly, 21 Dec. 2015, p. 139. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A438563360/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9caa9719. Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A438563360
Olympia Knife
Alysia Constantine
Interlude Press (Nov 2, 2017)
Softcover $16.99 (204pp)
978-1-945053-27-6
2017 INDIES Finalist
Finalist, LGBT (Adult Fiction)
2017 INDIES Finalist
Finalist, Literary (Adult Fiction)
This mesmerizing novel is a must.
Americans don’t have fairy tales: we have legends. Tall tales. Olympia Knife is a fabulous, luscious story that invokes a magical, yesteryear world. Filled with larger-than-life characters, this mesmerizing novel is a must.
Olympia, the daughter of two circus performers, soon discovers her own powers. She’s one part sideshow and one part performance royalty. Her parents, the famous Flying Knifes, are at ease on the trapeze. Olympia, on the other hand, struggles to find her footing on the high wire.
She both loves and dislikes the limelight: it’s apt that she was born with the ability to vanish. She can physically vaporize, and become transparent. Out of costume, she enjoys a different kind of invisibility, deemed as “plain”: “She drew absolutely no attention of any kind.”
Olympia’s circus companions, like Arnold (The World’s Smallest Major General Tiny Napoleon Only Three Feet Tall) and Minnie (The Fat Lady) have interesting stories of their own. Their world is vibrant, dangerous, and a smart commentary on social prejudices against outsiders. Queer, differently-abled, fat, and nonwhite characters pack the pages.
Set in the postbellum South, Olympia Knife is, at its core, a story about a culture that is no longer able to ignore its own diversity or the itch for change. As Olympia grows, exploring her powers and her place in the dual worlds she inhabits, she witnesses both human potential and limitation, and their shocking consequences.
Author Alysia Constantine is a superb writer whose distinctive, rich style makes Olympia Knife a pleasure from beginning to end.
Reviewed by Claire Foster
November/December 2017
SWEET
Author(s):
Alysia Constantine
The narrative quality is unique. Readers who are looking for a new way to tell a romance story will really enjoy how the narrator breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to them. Another positive of this novel is the realness yet sweetness of the characters and their love story. The secondary characters also make this a fun read. If you are looking for a sugary read with a dash of pain and healing, pick this one up. Once you get into it, you’ll find yourself unable to stop.
Jules Burns is mourning the loss of his husband. He’s a baker and pours his life into his creations. But after a chance meeting with Teddy Cruz, he’s hooked. The two flirt online and later in person. It’s a peek into the life of two very different and beautifully broken men who find themselves and grow into each other. (INTERLUDE, Feb., 246 pp., $16.99)
Reviewed by:
Jessie Potts
OLYMPIA KNIFE
Author(s):
Alysia Constantine
The world of Olympia Knife is one that goes beyond genre definitions and expectations. It’s a deft historical fantasy romance that addresses issues of queerness and marginalization through the lens of a tight-knit traveling circus. Constantine’s writing is evocative; it reads like a tale being told over a crackling campfire. The storyline is a blend of romance and general fiction, capturing the histories of the entire circus and the mystery surrounding Olympia’s skills with invisibility. At times the prose can feel repetitious, but the overall effect shrouds the reader like a comfortable blanket. Olympia Knife is a gentle historical fantasy with a hint of magic, perfect for readers who love queer romances and books such as Tipping the Velvet or Water For Elephants.
Olympia Knife is the daughter of eccentric trapeze artists. She is part of a traveling circus, operating at the turn of the twentieth century. She also has the uncanny ability to become invisible without warning. The sudden disappearance of her parents in the middle of a performance and the appearance of the mysterious and attractive Diamond the Danger Eater create a veil of uncertainty around Olympia’s life. As she begins an unexpected romance, more and more of Olympia’s world seems to disappear in front of her, and she has no idea how to hold on to what remains. (INTERLUDE, Nov., 204 pp., $17.99)
Reviewed by:
John Jacobson
“Olympia Knife” by Alysia Constantine
January 12, 2018
I got this book from NetGalley a few months ago, but I’ve been terrible about staying on top of reviewing ARCs. Even when I actually read them on time, I keep writing “review to come” and then never writing it. One of my goals for 2018 is to actually review stuff straight away, so I’m trying to start as I mean to go on. This was my first book of the year, and tada! I wrote a review!
olympia knife
Publication date: November 2nd, 2017
This was a strange, compelling book, but ultimately a tiny bit disappointing.
I’ll start with the strangeness, which I enjoyed a lot. It’s set in a travelling circus, which I enjoy as a setting. The cast is mostly focused on the sideshow ‘freaks’; as outsiders they’re both sympathetic and interesting characters. Their talents and oddities aren’t where the strangeness comes in, though; while bearded ladies and contortionists may be unusual enough to find themselves in a circus, they’re not inherently supernatural.
Olympia, the titular character, starts out as an aerialist, who just happens to turn invisible sometimes — but her invisibility isn’t her talent or act. It’s just A Thing That Happens, without the author or other characters particularly feeling the need to explain why. If it were her act, this would be a relatively conventional fantasy circus. The fact that it’s merely a quirk of her nature makes this book different, and more interesting because of it, if also more frustrating.
The strangeness, then, was there from the beginning, and things start to get stranger when members of the circus begin to disappear one by one in impossible ways.
This is where the word “compelling” comes in. I started this book quite late at night, with a bad headache, planning just to read a little bit to switch off my brain’s dissertation mode that would inevitably keep me up if I didn’t. Instead I ended up reading more than half the book. With each disappearance I became more and more interested in knowing WHY and HOW these characters were disappearing. Would the circus survive? Would they come back? The more I read, the more questions I had, and it was only reluctantly that I put it down to go to sleep.
However, it was in the resolution of this narrative that the disappointment arrived. I won’t give too many details, as I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I had a lot of questions and was given very few answers. Indeed, some of the hints that I was given confused me even further. I think I can see what the MEANING of the disappearances was, if that makes sense, but not how they happened. Like Olympia’s invisibility, they weren’t explained; however, while her invisibility wasn’t the crux of the tension and mystery of the book, they were, and I felt there needed to be slightly more explanation, especially as I’d been so intrigued to know what was happening.
Other things I enjoyed about the book include the fact it centres on a f/f relationship, as well as featuring other characters from diverse backgrounds. I also liked the glimpses of each character’s backstory that came periodically. At first they threw me off, but I settled into it and enjoyed the insight they offered into what had brought each character to the circus. The writing style, too, was enjoyable enough, although didn’t blow me away (I measure that by how often I highlight phrases on Kindle just because I like them; I only highlighted a few bits of dialogue in this one).
It was probably shaping up to be a four star read, but the ending did disappoint me somewhat, as I really wanted some more concrete resolution, so I’m only going to give it three — a little sad, since it was the first book I read this year, but hopefully not an omen for the rest of my reading in 2018.
Rating: ***