Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski reflects back on his wild and wondrous days with a circus. It’s the Depression Era and Jacob, finding himself parentless and penniless, joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. There he meets the freaks, grifters, and misfits that populate this world. He introduces us to Marlena, beautiful star of the equestrian act; to August, her charismatic but twisted husband (and the circus’s animal trainer); and to Rosie, the seemingly untrainable elephant Jacob cares for. Beautifully written, with a luminous sense of time and place, Water for Elephants tells of love in a world in which love’s a luxury few can afford.
Reviews
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This marvelously exciting and satisfying book has been given the engaging audio production it deserves, with a fine reading of young Jacob Jankowski by David LeDoux, in a cracking voice full of youthful passion and high drama, and John Randolph Jones doing the crusty, rusted voice of Jacob at 90, furious about being warehoused in a nursing home while inside he is still the young man who joined the circus, fell in love with the girl who did the elephant act, and survived the catastrophe that finally befell the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth as the Great Depression tightened its grip on everything. LeDoux gets to do the high-voltage scenes, and there are many, but Jones and Rosie the elephant steal your heart. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
About the Author
SARA GRUEN is the best selling author of Riding Lessons. She is an animal lover who lives with her husband, three children, five cats, two goats, a dog, and a horse in an environmentalist community north of Chicago. She did extensive research on traveling circuses of the 1930s for this story.
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