I enjoyed this book about circus life during the Great Depression. I especially like the way the author skillfully wove in historic facts such as an elephant not understanding English and the problem “jake leg” which was caused by tainted Jamaica ginger.

I have to agree with this (excerpt from an) Amazon review:

“To me, however, Gruen never managed to transcend her source material. The primary problem was the narrator’s voice. Although the book was sprinkled with circus-specific vocabularly of that era, Gruen utterly fails to capture the rhythm or syntax of the time or milieu. Gruen’s language felt inappropriately contemporary, which undermined the overall credibility of the story.”

For “historical fiction” it certainly didn’t feel it. I found the writing style and plot lines to be immature, the relationships with the animals to be shallow and the character development to be one-dimensional. I don’t HATE it, but I certainly wouldn’t want to read it again.

Fortunately, this book is about much more than warehousing the old. If anything, this book is about a man, who though warehoused, insists on being so much more than a forgettable person and insists on breaking out of the warehouse back into the life he craves.

I really enjoyed this book. It is sad and funny and the characters — even the disturbing and venal ones — are wonderfully crafted and individual. Great texture of the 1930s and life in the circus.

I keep gravitating to books set in old-folks homes: first Choke and now this one. And I watched The Trouble With Angels the other night where, after a bittersweet evening entertaining in an old-folks home, Hayley Mills tells her Mother Superior she hopes she dies young and very rich. I’m sure this book is about more than warehousing the elderly, just as Choke was about more, but at the moment, I feel a little haunted. I think it is too late for me to follow the “Die young” advice, but maybe I can find a way still to be rich before I get carted off to one of these places. Otherwise, if these two books are any indication, life quickly spirals into misery after that.

This was very sad, but lovely. Really well written and very interesting. I hope circuses have moved on a lot since then!!

This was one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time. It’s fun, paced well, and a great read. The story is really interesting, very well done with great research behind it, and the ending is a delightful surprise.

I loved this book. Its incredibly well written, imaginative, and has great character development. I really like how Gruen uses the framework of the main character in the last stage of his life to ground the story of his younger days in the circus. I really liked reading about circus life. For me, it was long enough ago that the animal (and human) brutality seemed more like fiction. Totally recommend it! I couldn’t put it down!

I couldn’t put it down. What a fantastic read!

I thought the tale itself was well written, but the subject was just too sad—both the state of the old man, and the horrors of the circus. I didn’t find it worthwhile reading material, and I’m surprised it has been so well received by critics.