When a man named Lewis rents a vacation house on Long Island for a few days, he doesn't expect to end up on a crazy circus train ride to nowhere. His one night in the house, he burns it down. Then he meets charismatic Joseph Dillon, manager of the Circus of the Grand Design. Knowing he needs to leave the area in a hurry, Lewis agrees to join the circus as a publicist, despite Dillon's warning that he might not be able to return to the place he began. The circus's private train travels an infinite dream-loop to unknown lands, and Lewis becomes lost amongst crazy acrobats, sexy elephant riders, a magical mechanical horse, a giant woman and her savage, prehistoric rodent bears, an egotistical juggler and a fertility goddess who takes exceptional interest in him. The train, its residents and the places they visit form a complex puzzle that Lewis feels compelled to solve; this, then, is the Circus of the Grand Design.

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