Water for Elephants

I enjoy novels that take place in circuses, carnivals, sideshows, etc. The characters are usually flawed and desperate, the jargon is colorful and evocative, the plots are urgent and compelling. The books are great escapes from my life as a desk jockey.

Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants is no exception. The story takes place during the Great Depression. The main character is a young veterinary student who is about to graduate from Cornell when disaster strikes, leaving him penniless and homeless. He jumps a train, which ends up belonging to a circus run by a sociopathic ringmaster. He gets a job in the circus, working under the supervision of the circus' sadistic and paranoid schizophrenic equestrian director. Naturally, our hero falls for his boss' wife, which leads to all kinds of trouble.

The chapters alternate between the protagonist's miserable and humdrum existence in a nursing home at the age of 90 (or 93; he can't remember), and his exciting life in the circus as a young man. To be honest, I could have done without the nonagenarian chapters, which I found really depressing. The rest of the book makes up for it, though. $8.37 on Amazon