This lively documentary centers on two people who seem the least likely to become involved in gay pornography: Karen and Barry Mason, a married, conservative, heterosexual Jewish American couple. Yet they not only ran the titular adult book and video store in West Hollywood for more than three decades but they expanded into related activities, despite never being much in the way of porn aficionados themselves. The film opens with the bookstore on its way out of business, but for director Rachel Mason, Karen and Barry’s daughter, there is an important legacy here worth remembering.

Mason starts out by recapping her subjects’ early careers, including Karen’s as a court reporter and Barry’s as a special effects engineer for the movies. Even then Karen was especially drawn to obscenity-related cases and at one point interviewed Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, while Barry was already something of an entrepreneur. He moonlighted as a designer of medical equipment, which supported his and Karen’s growing family until he suffered a professional setback, wherein the couple grasped at the first opportunity they could find: becoming distributors of Flynt’s magazines.

Some of the most intriguing moments reveal just how deep Karen and Barry got into the adult film industry as they evolved from the distribution side to retail and, in one truly unexpected revelation, started producing best-selling hardcore gay porn. But to hear them talk about it years later, each next step was logical. Their success was attributable to their professional, all-business approach. The filmmaker talks to former adult movie directors, producers, and actors who worked with the couple and were always eager to do so again because they seemed so decent and nice, which weren’t easy traits to find in that universe.

Circus of Books entertains so much because of how unlikely the Masons’ story first appears, but it’s also fascinating to watch history unfold and see how they regularly found themselves part of larger cultural events. A local LGBTQ historian points out that the bookstore was actually located at an important site for what would become the gay rights movement, and there’s no shortage of talking heads relating how Circus of Books represented a safe haven for gay men to explore their sexuality and find others like themselves. Archived footage of West Hollywood highlights just how sexually liberated the 1970s/early ‘80s were, but later on when the news reels focus on the federal government’s war on pornography and the AIDS epidemic, the tone is considerably sobering. 

Despite being set against a large canvas, the film never loses sight of the family at its heart, especially Karen and Barry. Whether appearing in home movies or the present day, Karen is an impelling force, always taking charge and voicing her opinion. This creates some tension with her daughter as she second-guesses many of the director’s decisions about what to shoot—or the validity of the entire project. But at the same time, Karen becomes a unique contradiction: someone who chose to earn a living peddling sex-related products despite being deeply uncomfortable with them because of her religious faith.

By contrast, Barry is consistently upbeat, but as the film progresses and a crisis emerges in the form of a federal charge of transporting obscene materials across state lines, we come to realize just how much of a pillar of quiet strength he is. For years, according to the family’s lawyer, Barry had a possible prison sentence hanging over his head. Yet in all of the photographs and other footage over the years, his carefree-looking smile never goes missing.

The director and her two brothers, Micah and Josh, discuss how their upbringing wasn’t always so easy, given that their parents wanted to keep work and family completely separate. Micah recalls being ordered to stare at the floor whenever he stopped by the bookstore, while Mason admits to being shocked as a teenager upon discovering the true nature of the business, since it also meant finding out that Karen and Barry were so much more edgy than her. But not every anecdote is so humorous: Josh grew up believing homosexuality to be evil, which made his own realization of being gay especially tortured.

Yet the filmmakers’ intent is neither to lionize the parents nor blame them for a litany of troubles; rather, it’s to portray them as complicated human beings. At the same time, the film recognizes there was much good Karen and Barry put out into the world. Some of the more moving scenes feature them recalling visiting employees and associates who were sick with HIV or talking over the phone with parents who had disowned their sons because of their homosexuality.

Circus of Books is eulogistic for a bygone time, but it also has a big heart, making it a fitting tribute.