I meant to post this as soon as I finished the book. Here it is.
A
runaway teen – Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Nickel -- is fascinated with two shipwrecked
African giraffes and signs on with a crusty Old Man to transport them from the
East Coast to the San Diego Zoo. The year is 1938. The Depression is still
loose upon the land and evil lurks overseas. A road trip with giraffes seems
like just the thing.
The
book opens with a prologue from the year 2025. A healthcare worker in a VA
hospital comes across a deceased patient’s old army footlocker. In it, she finds
a porcelain toy giraffe from the San Diego Zoo and a stack of writing tablets. It’s
the saga of Woody’s trip. The writer intersperses scenes from the journals with
a look at Woody at 105 struggling to write it all down. He writes, talks
gibberish, fends off hovering healthcare workers, and imagines a giraffe
outside the window. The reader roots for him to get down his story and we know
he will as the tale depends on it.
During
the journey in a specially-outfitted truck, Woody encounters charlatans, circus
freaks, hobos in Hoovervilles, and a budding love interest. His mentor, the Old
Man, works overtime to keep the trek on track. There’s a love interest, too, in
a young woman Augusta (Red) who pretends to be a Life Magazine photographer and
accompanies the giraffe convoy in a stolen Packard.
As
I’ve written before, I dig road trips, going on them and reading about them. It
was rough travel, suited to the realities of 1938. But I loved reading about
it. It did drag in some spots – the always difficult middle section of the
novel -- and the journey’s ending seemed a bit anticlimactic. But it’s a trip
I’d go on again.
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