Sandra E. Bowen

This Day's Madness Sandra E. Bowen

This Day's Madness justifiably earns its title of madness, because there is no other way to describe or rationalize what happens to Frankie, an eight year old orphan black girl entrusted to the care of Tom, a white man and the owner of Doub Circus in which Frankie performs as the WORLD'S YOUNGEST TRAPEZIST. This Day's Madness is a quasi-tragedy in which the gods and poetic justice are absent. For, Frankie's unrelenting tragic suffering is created by an evil-meaning group of people, who kidnap her, only to set her up for ruin. The story lures the reader in with the jovial mood created by the circus. But then, Frankie is torn from her circus family and they are chased out of town. Frankie is sent to an orphanage, where she is stripped of her circus name and becomes Thomasena. Her life becomes a nerve-wrecking and pathetic saga of erased identity, smothered truth, stolen innocence and crushed ambition. Her final hopes for rescue are dashed when Tom Doub dies. Frankie is forced to adjust to life in a hostile environment where she is treated like a parolee from jail. Despite her brilliant performance in school and upright behavior in the community, fate and events conspire to bring her down in shame. Frankie is raped and impregnated by a rich white college student who would have nothing to do with her when she goes looking for him in New York.. where she starts a new life. Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, Professor of English, Loyola University New Orleans