The Last of the Wallendas

Writing with DeVincentis-Hayes, who teaches English literature at the University of Maryland, the granddaughter of highwire walker Karl Wallenda tells the story of her family's generations-long involvement in circus acrobatics and her career as keeper of the heritage. Although that heritage has included private tragedies, family feuds, bitter divorces and numerous performance-related deaths and maimings, the inherited compulsion to dare the heights was so strong that Delilah chose to honor her grandfather, who perfected the ``seven-man pyramid,'' by becoming a skywalker herself. She acknowledges that her childhood was confused, her apprenticeship harsh, yet she and her children carry on the tradition of highwire performance even now, when the circus's glory days are long past. Unfortunately, her tangled history of this extended family and its unique obsession unfolds in undistinguished prose that lacks the pungent ambience of circus life. 20,000 first printing; author tour. ( May )