This book centers on an old man.  Water for Elephants, written by Sara Gruen is about a series of memories of Jacob Jankowski, an old man in his 90s.Jacob lives in a nursing home and likes to spend his time reminiscing about his younger days as a circus veterinarian during the great depression.

Jankowski’s stories start off with a memory of his parents being killed in a car accident.  Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob was attending Cornell University in hopes to follow his father’s footsteps.  When Jacob’s father dies, he finds out that his father was in debt because he was treating animals for free and mortgaged the family home to provide Ivy League education for Jacob.  When Jacob learns about his father’s past, he breaks down and runs away from school, just a little before he graduates.  He jumps on a train, and his adventures begin.  He enters a world of drifters, misfits, freaks and a circus struggling through the Great Depression.  When the owner, Uncle Al, learns about his goal in becoming a veterinarian, he hires Jacob to take care of the circus animals.

As Jacob’s adventure go on, his secrets and details of it unfolds.  He becomes attracted to August, the circus’s mercurial menagerie director, and Marlena, who is an equestrian and eventually becomes his wife.  After Uncle Al purchases Rose, an elephant to replace Marlena’s horse, Jacob focuses his attention to Rosie and coaxes her to perform which saves the circus from the starvation and devastating times of the Great Depression

Gruen does a good job portraying evocative scenes and finely drawn characters in Water for Elephants. As Jacob battles to maintain sanity, each character from his past is immensely sewn in his memory.  Water for Elephants is a fun book to read for someone who is looking for a historical fiction to read.