by Sara Gruen, 2006
This book is the real deal! The author, a female, has managed to get inside the head of her main character, Jacob, and capture his innermost feelings and thoughts when he was a young man in the circus and also when he was over ninety years old in a nursing home. In addition to accomplishing this feat, she weaves an interesting story into circus life in the midst of the Great Depression. The book is also a joy to read as her prose just about leaps out of the page. As I look at the list of books I have read over the last couple of years and the number of them that I struggled through, this book restores my regard for contemporary American literature. 
Tags: Fiction