WATER FOR ELEPHANT [1]
—Independent Weekly
“Water for Elephants vividly and concisely brings this lost world to life.”
—Columbus Dispatch
“Old-fashioned and endearing, this is an enjoyable, fast-paced story.”
—Library Journal
“Lovely and mesmerizing.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] page-turner. . . . Gruen skillfully humanizes midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Gorgeous, brilliant, and superbly plotted, Water for Elephants swept me into the world of the circus during the Depression, and it did not let me go until the very end. I don’t think it has let me go, even now. Sara Gruen has a voice to rival John Irving’s, and I am hopelessly, unabashedly in love with this book. Read it.”
—Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama
“So much more than a tale about a circus, Water for Elephants is a compelling journey not only under the big top, but into the protagonist’s heart. Sara Gruen uses her talent as a writer to bring that world alive for the reader: I could smell it, taste it, feel every word of it. This is a fiction reader’s dream come true.”
—Jeanne Ray, author of Julie and Romeo Get Lucky
“The circus, the Great Depression, a complex elephant, equally complex love, the mists and twists of memory articulated in the utterly winning voice of a very old man who’s seen it all: these are the irresistible elements of Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen has written an utterly transporting novel richly full of the stuff of life.”
—Robert Olen Butler, author of From Where You Dream
“An entirely original, captivating story of finding love in a down-at-the-heels traveling circus in the Great Depression. Sara Gruen writes with great tenderness and breathtaking drama, which makes the novel impossible to put down.”
—Stephanie Cowell, author of Marrying Mozart
“In this thrilling, romantic story set in a traveling circus in the 1930s, Sara Gruen has a big top’s worth of vivid characters and an exhilarating narrative that kept me up all night. From the perseverance of a terrier named Queenie to the charm of Rosie the elephant, this masterpiece of storytelling is a book about what animals can teach people about love.”
—Susan Cheever, author of My Name Is Bill
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
A NOVEL
SARA GRUEN
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2006 by Sara Gruen. All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, April 2007.
Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2006.
Printed in the United States of America.
Design by Jacky Woolsey.
For permission to reprint photographs, grateful acknowledgment is made to the following: pages xii, 48, 90, 112, 142, 160, 220, 260, 290, and 312 courtesy of the Collection of the Ringling Circus Museum, Sarasota, Florida; pages 30, 178, and 196 courtesy of the Pfening Archives, Columbus, Ohio; page 70 courtesy of Ken Harck Archives; pages 128 and 238 courtesy of Timothy Tegge, Tegge Circus Archives, Baraboo, Wisconsin; page 14 courtesy of Barbara Fox McKellar.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gruen, Sara.
Water for elephants : a novel / by Sara Gruen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-499-8 (HC)
1. Circus—Fiction. 2. Depressions—Fiction. 3. Circus performers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.R696W38 2006
813'.6—dc22 2005052700
ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-560-5 (PB)
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Paperback Edition
FOR BOB,
STILL MY SECRET WEAPON
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the following people for their contributions to this book:
To the fantabulous team at Algonquin, including Chuck