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Abused by her husband, sixteen-year-old Kay runs away to join the carnival,
sleeping in trucks along the way. While working in a cookhouse, she meets Gladys
Tompkins and her son Jerry. Hundreds of miles later Kay and Jerry become carnival
owners.

Carny girl documents four generations of carnival women, beginning with Gladys
and Kay and ending with great-granddaughter Kelsey, who dreams of following her
family on the road.

Among the clan is Tracy Creason, a third generation Carny who wears the label
proudly but who understands the prejudices as well, many of them spawned by the
gritty reality of the carnival's yesteryear. Once a mermaid in a sideshow, Tracy lives in
a modern carnival world, an "amusement park on wheels" with rules and regulations
old-school carnies never could have imagined.

Carny girl illuminates a world where both deception and showmanship are a way of
life; where carnival families stick to their own kind and, like families everywhere,
ultimately want more for their children than they had for themselves.