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By EMILY BATTLE
Jacob Jankowski is a strait-laced boy from Norwich, N.Y., getting ready to graduate and follow in his father's footsteps as a veterinarian, when tragedy strikes.
His parents are killed in an accident, and Jacob learns that the bank failures that preceded the Great Depression and the expense of his Ivy League education have left the family with nothing, and him with no home, no veterinary practice, no life.
He runs deliriously until he hops aboard a train that happens to be carrying the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, and the complex, colorful world that Sara Gruen creates in "Water for Elephants" begins to reveal itself.
Gruen tells her readers in an author's note at the end of the book that the story was inspired by a newspaper article about a photographer who followed traveling circuses in the 1920s and '30s.
She took numerous research trips to delve into the history of the American circus.
And what a colorful history it is. Many of the details in the book are taken from real-life anecdotes Gruen gleaned during her research.
Her cast of circus characters includes an array of standard circus freaks, alcoholics and back-stabbing businessmen.
During parts of the book, these people seem much more interesting than Jacob, who at times comes off as being just a little too good and ethical to be traveling with the Benzini Brothers.
"Uncle Al," the show's general manager, is portrayed as a self-interested, conniving businessman whom Jacob describes as a vulture rushing off to feed off whatever is left when he learns that a rival circus has folded.
It is through this process that the show acquires Rosie, an elephant who is deemed dumb by her seller, but who turns out to be one of the book's most intriguing characters.
Rosie plays a pivotal role in the engaging plot's final twist.
It takes a while for Gruen to give her readers a good idea of what that plot will be, but she keeps them onboard while she gets there by using the circus world to explore an interesting period in American history.
The story takes place at the beginning of the Great Depression. It's clear throughout the novel that the only thing separating the cast of characters on the Benzini Brothers train from the depths of the nation's economic troubles is the fact that they're holding onto their jobs.
When money runs low, readers learn about a horrific practice called "redlighting"--Uncle Al's way of cutting down his payroll to reduce expenses.
And even on a train where everyone is thrown together, there are clear class distinctions.
"Baggage stock," or the workers who assemble the show's infrastructure, can't dine or ride with "kinkers," as the show's performers are known.
And while Uncle Al and the performers drink champagne and real whiskey despite Prohibition, the baggage stock are left to take their chances with Jamaican ginger extract.
Known as "jake," this patent medicine was a popular substitute for illegal spirits, but after a pair of bootleggers started using a plasticizer to alter the formula of the liquid to bypass a federal mandate that it be made undrinkable, certain batches started causing paralysis known as "jake leg."
Jake leg takes hold of one of Jacob's first friends with the Benzini Brothers, and readers watch this victim meet a horrific fate when Uncle Al determines he's dead weight.
Once Gruen has put the basic characters and circumstances of the Benzini Brothers world in play, she hooks her readers with a quick-developing plot that makes the book's later chapters almost impossible to put down.
"Water for Elephants" offers engrossing characters with a plot that becomes a page-turner toward the end, making it a great addition to any late-summer reading list.
To reach EMILY BATTLE:
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com
Water for Elephants By Sara Gruen (Algonquin, 335 pages, $23.95) |
