triangle.com | Home

Mondays, in particular, find me yearning to do nothing more than lead elephants, horses, giraffes to water. We all have escape careers -- and who hasn't dreamed of running away to the circus? Sara Gruen does it, and brings us along with her. (The dream career of one of my grad-school professors was to sit on a dock by a river. And that's it. If somebody needed bait, she might point to a bucket, but she wouldn't scoop out the worms.) 

A real dream career might be Sara Gruen's crafting of "Water for Elephants" -- spinning a story out of the facts of circus living.

How'd she do? I don't want to overdirect you, but you'll find some discussion questions here and here Pick one, or select a topic of your own.

And, of course, we're assuming that everyone who's at this site has finished reading the book - so spoil away!