This is a lovely book and my favorite of the summer so far. Gruen did research on Depression era travelling circuses by looking at collections of photographs from the day. Her story, narrated by 90 year old Jacob Jankowski, recalls the struggles and disasters often associated with travelling circuses. The elephant, Rosie, is a character in and of herself. I couldn't put this book down.
This novel is set in New York City and India. The main character, Neil Downs, is a physician who is on call when his son's body is brought into the hospital following an act of school violence. The outcome of the incident changes Downs forever and sends him on a search for life's purpose in New Dehli, where he takes a job as embassy physician. I especially liked the passages about the teachings of Levi Furstenblum, a Holocaust survivor and writer whose philosophy Bauman fabricates in such a way I found myself wondering whether Furstenblum wasn't some real person I had never heard of. This book is about race, inequality and the time it takes to mend damaged lives. I really enjoyed it.
The main characters in this novel are elevator inspectors that can be divided into two schools of thought - the Empiricists and the Intuitionists. The plot revolves around whether Lila Mae Watson, the first black female inspector, was set up to take the fall for an elevator that crashed after she had signed off on it. Politics, race and kooky elevator physics make this an interesting read.
