Water for Elephants
As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Water for Elephants
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Ninety-year-old Jacob Jankowski is in a nursing home looking out at a circus tent in the parking lot, and walks back to the Depression year a Cornell vet exam took the news of his parents' deaths.
It is fiction, but Sara Gruen based the setting on extensive research into Depression-era American circuses, drawing from photo archives and oral histories of real circus workers.
Yes. A 2011 film starred Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz. A Broadway musical adaptation premiered in 2024 and was nominated for seven Tony Awards.
It contains a few sex scenes that are detailed but not extended. It sits at the spicier end of book club fiction.
It contains a few sex scenes that are detailed but not extended. It sits at the spicier end of book club fiction.
Water for Elephants was written by Sara Gruen, published in 2006 by Algonquin Books.
Water for Elephants is 355 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Water for Elephants takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
Water for Elephants is a standalone novel by Sara Gruen, not part of a series.
Water for Elephants is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.