West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

West With Giraffes is a 2021 novel of historical fiction written by Lynda Rutledge. It’s a true story upon which she has beautifully expanded beyond the few facts she found in the achives of the San Diego Zoo. The story takes place in 1938 at a time when the Great Depression was still having a serious impact on the world’s population, Hitler was beginning his own expansionist activities in Europe, and the Dust Bowl was driving people out of their family homes in the Great Plains. The recently formed San Diego Zoo had acquired two giraffes, the likes of which had never been seen west of the Mississippi River. The story did become a major news event as the US population seemed to revel in what seemed like a wonderful distraction from the tragedies that were happening on a daily basis. It’s a story about an Okie’s journey who loved animals and who fell desperately in love with the giraffes.

 

The story was already a big one by the time the boat carrying the giraffes reached New York Harbor. The boat had come through the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, the most damaging major hurricane ever to reach the East Coast, at least until Sandy in 2012. The boat limped into port and the survival of the giraffes was a surprise. The story continued on the state-by-state trip across the country, and the adventures were many. It’s told in the voice of Woody Nickel, a 17-year-old Okie, (actually the Texas Panhandle, but everyone from the area was considered an Okie).

 

The reader gets to learn about a redheaded woman who was fleeing her marriage in order to follow her dream of becoming a photo journalist. The animal keeper who was in charge had also led a mysterious life, and they were all trying to get the giraffes to Belle Benchley, a dynamo of a woman and the first woman to run a zoo in the U.S.

 

 I loved this book, and the author had me hooked into the story within the first couple pages of the novel. My sister sent me her copy and my wife announced that she had already read it and loved it. These are two very literate women whose recommendations should have more influence than my own.

West Coast Don