Circus of Books
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Parents balance family life and running largest gay porn distributor in US during AIDS crisis
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In 1976, Karen and Barry Mason had fallen on hard times and were looking for a way to support their young family when they answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times. Larry Flynt was seeking distributors for Hustler Magazine. What was expected to be a brief sideline led to their becoming fully immersed in the LGBT community as they took over a local store, Circus of Books. A decade later, they had become the biggest distributors of gay porn in the US. The film focuses on the double life they led, trying to maintain the balance of being parents at a time when LGBT culture was not yet accepted. Their many challenges included facing jail time for a federal obscenity prosecution and enabling their store to be a place of refuge at the height of the AIDS crisis. Circus of Books offers a rare glimpse into an untold chapter of queer history, and it is told through the lense of the owners' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker and musician.
"Released during the Tribeca Film Festival, 'Circus of Books' is the kind of documentary of many things at once: on one hand, it's a time capsule of the LGBT community in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the VHS boom era and its role in the commercialization of pornography (like in 'Boogie Nights'), but also about the AIDS epidemic. On the other hand, it's a curious anecdote that is also personal to the director, artist Rachel Mason, as it is about the story of her parents and the legacy of community and empathy they left in their store, called 'Circus of Books'. Equally funny and moving."