Karen and Barry Mason had fallen on hard times and were looking for a method to feed their young family when they answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times in 1976. Hustler Magazine's publisher, Larry Flynt, was looking for distributors. What was supposed to be a quick sideline turned into them becoming totally entrenched in the LGBT community when they took over a local bookstore, Circus of Books. They became the largest distributors of gay porn in the United States a decade later. The film focuses on their double lives, trying to manage being parents at a period when LGBT culture was not yet acknowledged. Their many challenges included facing jail time for a federal obscenity charge and allowing their business to be a haven of sanctuary during the height of the AIDS crisis. Circus of Books provides a rare insight into an untold piece of gay history, as portrayed through the eyes of the founders' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker, and singer.
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Karen and Barry Mason had fallen on hard times and were looking for a method to feed their young family when they answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times in 1976. Hustler Magazine's publisher, Larry Flynt, was looking for distributors. What was supposed to be a quick sideline turned into them becoming totally entrenched in the LGBT community when they took over a local bookstore, Circus of Books. They became the largest distributors of gay porn in the United States a decade later. The film focuses on their double lives, trying to manage being parents at a period when LGBT culture was not yet acknowledged. Their many challenges included facing jail time for a federal obscenity charge and allowing their business to be a haven of sanctuary during the height of the AIDS crisis. Circus of Books provides a rare insight into an untold piece of gay history, as portrayed through the eyes of the founders' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker, and singer.
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