I am very excited for the movie version of this to come out which should be at the end of April. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while but as soon as I saw the trailer for the movie I knew I had to read it before the movie came out. The book is told from the point of view of Jacob Jankowski who at the beginning of the book wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a veterinarian. He is taking his finals at Cornell and becomes so nervous that he leaves the testing room. While he is wandering about in the night a train comes passing by. He hops the train and it completely changes the course of his life.

It turns out the train he hopped belongs to the Benzini Brothers Circus. A couple of workers take him in and finally talk Uncle Al the owner and ringleader of the circus to give Jacob a job as the circus veterinarian. Jacob is introduced to August who is in charge of the animals including 6 horses that his wife Marlena performs on in the circus, lions, tigers, and later an elephant named Rosie who is very funny and is apparently based on several circus elephants Gruen came across in her research for the book. Jacob soon gets closer to August and Marlena and eventually falls in love with Marlena but I won’t reveal how that goes.

One of the interesting facets of the book is how it goes back and forth between Jacob as an old man in a nursing home and Jacob as a young man with the Benzini Brothers circus. Jacob as an old man is crotchety, doesn’t get along with the other residents, but is very excited for the circus coming to town and is waiting for his family members to get to the home so that they can take him to the circus. It is kind of neat following these two stories of different times in Jacob’s life.

The story of life in the circus itself during the Great Depression was fascinating as well. Uncle Al and August weren’t very nice men but I won’t spoil any of that since they make up the meat of the story. It was interesting the segregation between the circus workers and roustabouts and the performers. They ate at different tables, slept in different train cars and the workers were even denied pay when the circus wasn’t making enough while the performers always got paid. What was also interesting and kind of scary was the process of red lighting someone. Basically if Uncle Al didn’t want someone he would have his security throw them off of the moving train. It was technically illegal and Al would often have to talk to the railroad authorities, but it still happened from time to time and I bet stuff like that really did happen in actuality.

Overall I would say this was a very enjoyable book. It was interesting to read about circus life during this time in American history and how these small train circuses compared themselves to the granddaddy of them all Ringling Brothers. I would highly recommend this book.