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 lens of the owners' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker and musician.
Rachel Mason's work has been the subject of articles in publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Vice Magazine, Artforum, ArtNews, Art in America. Her work has been presented at institutions including The Queens Museum, School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Henry Gallery in Seattle, James Gallery at CUNY, University Art Museum in Buffalo, Sculpture Center, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard, The New Museum, Park Avenue Armory, Art in General, La Mama, Galapagos, Dixon Place, and Empac Center for Performance in Troy. She has written three operas, recorded fourteen albums of songs, directed a musical feature film which was released in 2016, and was the subject of 50 published articles and has two films in production, one is musical feature and the other is a doc about her family's gay porn business, Circus of Books. She holds a BA degree from UCLA and MFA from Yale University. She was a recipient of a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council award and a New York Foundation for the Arts Opportunity Grant.
