Circus of Books, the Netflix documentary premiering today, begins with old home video footage of a large and boisterous family during domestic mealtime chaos.
Children are tugging sleeves for attention while parents shoo away the camera. It is a fitting opening for a film that is essentially a family mystery, and, wrapped within that mystery, a reckoning.
Barry and Karen Mason kept secret, for decades, the fact they owned and operated Circus of Books, a staple in West Hollywood that sold