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Karen and Barry Mason had fallen on hard times and were looking for a method to support their young family when they responded to a classified ad in the Los Angeles Times in 1976. Hustler Magazine's distributors were being sought by Larry Flynt. What was supposed to be a quick sideline turned into a full-fledged immersion in the LGBT community when they took over a local bookstore, Circus of Books. They had become the largest distributors of gay porn in the United States a decade later. The film focuses on their double lives, struggling to combine being parents and being LGBT during a time when LGBT culture was not yet acknowledged. Among their many challenges were facing jail time for a federal obscenity conviction and allowing their business to serve as a haven during the height of the AIDS crisis. Circus of Books provides a rare view into an untold piece of gay history, as narrated by the proprietors' own daughter, Rachel Mason, an artist, filmmaker, and singer.