School Library Lady

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is the story of a young man who joins a traveling circus during the Great Depression. It’s well researched and includes period photos. It’d be a really fun book to use as the starter fiction for the junior project. Though it’s not true historical fiction, it’s the sort of book that many English teachers at COHS will accept when they assign the reading of historical fiction or period pieces. It’s recently been a best seller and has elements to appeal to just about anyone—adventure, romance, revenge, and ultimately murder.

Jacob Jankowski is on the verge of taking his final exams at Cornell and becoming a veterinarian when his parents are killed in an automobile accident. Jacob’s world suddenly ends. He finds that his parents have mortgaged their home to pay for his education; the bank repossesses it. With nothing of his old life remaining, Jacob jumps a train on his way to living as a ‘hobo.’ However, without knowing it, he’s jumped a circus train, and as a man with valuable veterinary skills, he is offered a job with the Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

Circus life is tough; there’s a pecking order within the cast of workers and the performers are the stars. Just about everyone is mistreated, including both animals and humans, by the unscrupulous owner and manager, Uncle Al. Jacob almost seems doomed from the start. He must room with Kinko, an angry dwarf who’d like to blame some of his life’s misery on Jacob; he falls in loves with the stunning Marlena, who performs stunts with horses. Unfortunately, Marlena is married to a deeply mentally-ill man (psychotic?) who happens to be the animal trainer and very high in the pecking order. August is often brutal to the animals. Jacob, as you would guess from his profession, has a difficult time abiding this. He is particularly disturbed by August’s treatment of Rosie, the circus’s only elephant, who seems not to be able to obey commands and yet also shows deep intelligence. He discovers that Rosie only responds to Polish. This, however, does not stop August’s mistreatment of her.

The story is told as a series of memories of a contemporary Jacob—he’s ninety-three years old and resides in an assisted living facility; he suffers the many indignities of old age. How the story of Rosie, Marlena and Jacob turns out; and how the story of Jacob the old man concludes, were both a little too neat for me to believe either one. However, circus life, as it is presented to the consumer, is magical. So in this case, a fantasy ending isn’t so bad.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards, has had a nice run on the bestsellers’ list, I think, because it deals with the ways in which making a single bad decision can wreck lives.

To be honest, it was difficult for me to accept the premise of the novel. David Henry, a young orthopedic surgeon, delivers his own twins when his wife, Norah, goes into labor during a snowstorm. He has been able to drive as far as his office, and his nurse, Carolyn Gill, meets him there to help with the delivery. Norah, who is unconscious, first births a healthy boy, but afterwards, delivers a girl with Down Syndrome. Believing that Norah will be incapable of dealing with a mentally-disabled child, David gives the baby to Caroline to take to an institution. He then tells his wife that the second baby died.

Caroline tries to give the baby up at an institution, but doesn’t have the heart. She is single, in love with David (although he can’t be sure of this). With no ties, she decides to take the baby and run away to a new life. She then raises Phoebe as her own daughter, constantly battling the medical and everyday prejudice against a child with Down Syndrome.

That a single woman with a good career would take on the responsibility of a mentally-challenged child is a tough sell for me. Further, the baby was born in 1964 and the mother was unconscious. Perhaps this indicates that David didn’t have the right drugs in his office, but my mother gave birth to five children beginning in 1954, and was always conscious (though drugged). Knocking women out cold to deliver a baby seems dated. In addition, the prejudice against Phoebe runs deep. As a small child, she is stung by a bee and is allergic. When Carolyn takes her to the hospital, staff members assume that she will not want the child treated (meaning that Phoebe would die and no longer be a burden). Again, I knew people in the 1960s and 1970s with kids who had Down Syndrome, and seeking a quick way to have them die wasn’t part of any of their agendas. I really wish the book had been set back at least twenty years—or more—so that the many incidents would seem more believable.

Even though I couldn’t believe many of the details of this novel, I still enjoyed the main issues. David makes a life-altering mistake by not letting life take its course. Norah always grieves the daughter she believes has died. David must hide his lie for a lifetime and it makes him more distant and emotionally unavailable, so that Norah looks outward for emotional support. The twists and turns of their relationship and of David’s relationship to his son are more honest than other aspects of the book in examining how secrets destroy lives. Phoebe’s life is seen as something whole and containing its own happiness–despite what the people around her assume about her inability to lead a fulfilling existence.

This novel would be a good choice for the junior project. It might be fun for a student to look into some of the facts of the 1960s and 1970s—what childrearing was like, how Down Syndrome was ‘treated,’ etc. I’m guessing that most COHS students would truly enjoy the book. I know several people who have read it, and none had as difficult a time as I in suspending their disbelief in order to become engaged in the plotline.