Japin tells the story — fictional, but rooted in real stories from the time — of Lemmy, a small person who grows up in the "Lilliputian village" of the Dreamland amusement park at Coney Island. After the 1911 fire he joins a travelling company of dwarves. That brings him together with Rosa, the love of his life, and he goes back to live in Germany with her, only to find himself caught up in the rise of you-know-what.

Japin uses this framework to reflect not only on the obvious callousness of the exploitation of human "freaks" at the time (Dreamland also included a well-stocked "Human zoo" of people of exotic races), but also more generally on the instinct we seem to have to perform for the pleasure of those around us, from the smiling baby to the striptease dancer, so that the degradation of being exhibited as a freak can turn into a kind of satisfaction as well. It's all a bit superficial, squashed into the novella format like this, but quite interesting and clever all the same. ( )