Whistling for the Elephants
2 journalers for this copy...
Very funny book
An eccentric cast of characters, human and animal, features in this first novel for adults by comic actress Toksvig. When eleven-year-old tomboy Dorothy Kane moves with her upper-class English parents to the small town of Sassaspaneck, New York, the result is bewilderment on every side. The Kanes are a family of "partial communicators", physically remote and emotionally vague: "I suppose a lot of people have never seen their father naked; I had never seen mine without a tie." Confronted with a 1960s America shaken by a war in Vietnam, by campaigns for civil rights and women's liberation, Dorothy's parents retreat into crisis, leaving her to pick her own, troubled way through the last, crucial summer of her childhood.
She receives help and inspiration from an unlikely source: a trio of women who live on the edge of town in a dilapidated zoo. Gradually she uncovers details of the zoo's flamboyant and tragic history, its origins in passion and extravagant wealth, the secrets and betrayals surrounding its decline. It is a history that touches the lives of all the people of Sassaspaneck. With Dorothy's help, old wounds are healed and new bonds forged, as the women of the town are drawn into a struggle to save the zoo from property developers--and to provide a new home for Artemesia, a tightrope-walking African elephant.
An eccentric cast of characters, human and animal, features in this first novel for adults by comic actress Toksvig. When eleven-year-old tomboy Dorothy Kane moves with her upper-class English parents to the small town of Sassaspaneck, New York, the result is bewilderment on every side. The Kanes are a family of "partial communicators", physically remote and emotionally vague: "I suppose a lot of people have never seen their father naked; I had never seen mine without a tie." Confronted with a 1960s America shaken by a war in Vietnam, by campaigns for civil rights and women's liberation, Dorothy's parents retreat into crisis, leaving her to pick her own, troubled way through the last, crucial summer of her childhood.
She receives help and inspiration from an unlikely source: a trio of women who live on the edge of town in a dilapidated zoo. Gradually she uncovers details of the zoo's flamboyant and tragic history, its origins in passion and extravagant wealth, the secrets and betrayals surrounding its decline. It is a history that touches the lives of all the people of Sassaspaneck. With Dorothy's help, old wounds are healed and new bonds forged, as the women of the town are drawn into a struggle to save the zoo from property developers--and to provide a new home for Artemesia, a tightrope-walking African elephant.
Journal Entry 2 by Shivers82 at Common Grounds Cafe in Belfast, Co. Antrim United Kingdom on Monday, September 11, 2006
Released 17 yrs ago (9/12/2006 UTC) at Common Grounds Cafe in Belfast, Co. Antrim United Kingdom
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
Will release at tonights meeting
Will release at tonights meeting