Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen – A Review

These 3 boys eat a lot.  Back in Vermont, it seems like we made daily grocery store trips.  After all, the grocery store was practically across the street.  Here it’s not quite that simple, but we *do* have a Costco within 10 minutes of driving.  Every Saturday is Costco day.  It’s TJ’s favorite, since they have free samples at the end of almost every aisle.  The last two Saturdays I have gone with him, and quickly realize just how giddy these free samples make him as he exclaims to Phoenix about his free 8-10 course meal.  Me?  I hate grocery shopping.  I’m so glad he likes it.  He’s an organized, money saving maniac.  He has food lists, and price lists, and 3 different stores he shops at but it’s all in his head.  As far as I know, he’s never written any of down.  He just calculates and organizes all up in his geeky head and saves us a small fortune each month.  Or at least when he shops by himself, because when I go I always seem to find something else to buy.  It’s been ages since I’ve read a work of fiction.  I scanned the tables with the books and waited for something to catch my eye.

I read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, in its entirety, yesterday afternoon.  I couldn’t put it down for anything.  I made tomato rice soup and tapioca pudding all while reading.

The circus is in town.  The home for elderly patients is a buzz with excitement about family members coming to take them to the circus.  After catching a resident in a lie about working for the circus, Jacob Jankowski tells Rosemary, a nurse at the assisted living home his story.  He was a student at Cornell, studying veterinary medicine like his father before him and after a heart wrenching turn of events ended up working with a traveling train circus introducing him and me, to the unknown world of the depression era train circus.

Camel, an old, frail working man saves a 23 year old Jacob from being thrown from the train and gets him a job much to the dismay of the other men.  Later when Camel falls ill, Jacob is there to help him out.  Once Uncle Al, the totalitarian ring master, learns that he’s a veterinarian he takes him on and gives him work.  August and Marlena, a married couple with a turbulent marriage, are the stars of the show.  August tries to take Jacob under his wing but suspects he’s falling for his wife.  He is abusive and explosive, he can’t keep his anger and jealousy under control.

The train circuses all but fell apart during the depression, prohibition gave many men nothing to live for, and Water for Elephants gives us a compelling story of what it might have been like to live and work during those times.  The characters are vibrant and lovely, and dark and hateful. This story is full of hope, heartache, debauchery, secrets, murder and love.  The raw emotion made me feel like I was right there on the train.   I couldn’t take my eyes off the pages for barely a moment.  Each turn of a page brought me further into the world she Sara Gruen had created around me.

I *loved* this book and I can’t wait until next Saturday’s trip to Costco so I can grab another discount novel.