Books: Sara Gruen's New Elephant Story

In Sara Gruen's new novel "Water for Elephants," we read the story through the eyes of Jacob Jankowski, in his nineties and in his twenties.

In his nineties he is wasting away in a nursing home. His kids come to see him of course, when they remember. Then the circus comes to town, and he begins to recount his twenties for us as a nobody in Benzini Brother's Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

After Jacob's parents die in a car accident the week of his finals in college, he can't think. He can't answer a single question on his final exam, the exam that stands between him and graduation, but suddenly he doesn't care. He walks out of that room and doesn't stop until he hops a train.

A train, he realizes after, is the home of Benzini Brother's Most Spectacular Show on Earth. In the early years of the depression, that circus became his livelihood and his hell. Here he meets Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star and wife of August, the animal trainer.

Word gets around that Jacob was in school to be a veterinarian, and he gets the job as the circus vet. He starts seeing more of Marlena, being around the show's animals and begins to fall in love with her as she realizes she can't stand to be with August anymore. Would this attraction prove to be fatal with August's violent past, though?

After Big Al, head honcho, buys an elephant he believes to be the ticket to bringing his show back to life, he realizes the elephant, whose name is Rosie, doesn't listen to a word anyone tells her. She just eats, in massive amounts.

As Jacob takes a liking to Rosie, Marlena does too, and as they begin to get closer, a series of events begins to unravel the whole show, and one day in the menagerie would change their lives forever.