This book was good, but not great for me so I won't pay it the same respect in summarizing as say To Kill a Mockingbird deserved. I had not seen the movie version prior to reading the book, so that did not contribute to my opinion. I have to admit though, that I had seen enough of the movie's previews to have this constant picture of the weird kid from the Twilight movies (read Robert Pattinson) in my mind as Jacob Jankowski that I definitely could have done without while I was reading.
So anyways...the book follows the story of Jacob Jankowski looking back on his life at age 23 as either a 90 or 93 year old man in a nursing home; he can't remember his exact age. When the story begins Jacob is preparing to take is final exams in his last semester in Veterinary school at Cornell. He is called from his class and given the devastating news that his parents have both been killed in a car crash. He travels back to his home only to find that his father, who was also a veterinarian, had taken out loans and mortgaged their family home to pay for his college tuition. His father had also been accepting payment in goods and livestock from his rural clients in order to continue caring for any sick animal that was brought to him and had thus fallen behind on payments. Jacob is told that everything his parents had in their home or in the veterinary practice is now the bank's property leaving him penniless and alone.
He tries to return to Cornell to complete his exams and graduate, but the stress of the circumstances are too great. He runs away following the course of the nearby train tracks just to escape it all. After wandering too far away from town he decides his best option is to jump on one of the open cars of a passing train. When the train stops the next day Jacob finds out that he is aboard the "Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth" circus train. One of the circus workers help Jacob get a job shoveling manure, but once the circus owner, Uncle Al, and the head animal trainer, August, discover that Jacob is a Cornell educated veterinarian they hire him on to take care of the animals. The major conflict of the story arises when Jacob falls in love with the wildly uneven tempered and paranoid schizophrenic August's wife, Marlena. Marlena is the circus' star performer with her Arabian horses. The story is very predictable (again this could possibly be because of all the movie previews I saw) but still had its enjoyable parts. Taking a look back into the history of depression era circuses and even just life in general as a performer or someone who was different in this time period is a thought provoking concept. The animals of the circus were treated poorly, but even more disturbing was the way the sideshow "freaks" were treated by the people who effectively owned them and the people they were displayed in front of at each showing.
By far the most interesting character, and in some ways the hero of the story, is Rosie the elephant. She is acquired by the Benzini Brothers circus after another rival show is forced to close. The trainers and especially August think that Rosie is dumb and untrainable because she refuses to follow his commands. Marlena is even injured when Uncle Al tries to force Rosie into the show before she is ready to perform. Eventually is it Jacob who discovers that Rosie is, in fact, very intelligent, but she only knows commands in Polish. (How convenient then that he is Jacob Jankowski and not Jacob Garcia! lol) The funniest scene in the book comes when the roustabouts discover that Rosie is removing the wooden stake from the ground that is supposed to keep her in place, walking over to the concessions tent, drinking all of the lemonade before the crowds arrive, and then replacing herself in the original position stake and all without being caught while the rousabouts get the blame for the stolen lemonade.
Another book off the list! 96 to go!
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