Review of WEST WITH GIRAFFES by Lynda Rutledge

 3.5 Stars

This book is an adventure tale, a historical saga, and a coming-of-age story.

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, 105, knows that his life is drawing to an end and decides he needs to tell the story of a life-altering experience. Aged 17, he drives two giraffes, who miraculously survived the Great Hurricane of 1938, across the continent from New York City to California. In the 12-day journey, Woody meets a cross-section of humankind. Closest to him are Riley Jones (aka Old Man), the animal carer charged with bringing the giraffes to the San Diego Zoo, and Augusta, a young woman determined to document the journey and get her photo essay published in Life magazine. And most importantly, there are Wild Girl and Wild Boy, the two giraffes.

The story is based on an actual event. In September of 1938 two giraffes were indeed driven across the country. The unusual travelers were a sensation everywhere they went—and their story provided some much-needed enjoyment for a nation still struggling from the Depression. Newspapers updated their journey on a daily basis.

I think I would have enjoyed reading a non-fiction account of the trip. I think an opportunity was missed to also present the story of Belle Benchley, the only female zoo director in the world, who wanted giraffes for her zoo. The fictionalized sections of the journey are often unbelievable. One minute Wild Girl’s leg is doing fine and then it becomes badly infected? What are the chances that Woody and his companions make it to the exact spot where Woody lived? Though unrealistic, events are just as predictable: problems are encountered and the welfare of the animals is in jeopardy. Then the problems are all resolved fairly quickly.

For some reason, I found it difficult to connect with Woody who is the narrator of his story. I didn’t find him to have an interesting personality. His obsession with his deep, dark secret becomes tedious. The repeated references to his secret and how terrible it is are obviously intended to create suspense, but after a while, they just become annoying. Then, once he tells his secret, which left him so traumatized he was mute for months, all is well and he is able to put it in the past?

The same technique of withholding information is used to leave the reader guessing who Woody’s intended audience is for the story he is frantically writing before he dies. I felt manipulated.

Wild Boy and Wild Girl are by far the most interesting characters. They have distinct and endearing personalities. I also appreciated the book’s message about the importance of protecting animals and how animals can have a positive influence on the lives of humans: “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”

I had no difficulty taking breaks from reading the book because I didn’t find it totally engaging. There are a couple of surprises at the end, but the days of the journey are repetitive. I kept checking to see how many pages were left to the end. The novel could be 100 pages shorter if the romance element were eliminated and the focus were on the animals. After all, the author was motivated to write the story because she learned about how giraffes are now a threatened species, so she wanted to show how animals can make us more human and can charm and inspire us.

This is not a bad book, but I didn’t find it as entertaining as I’d hoped. I wanted the focus to be on human-animal interactions and connections.