Staff Pick
Part Dickensian childhood, part swashbuckling adventure, and part horrific tragedy, Jamrach's Menagerie is unlike anything I've ever read. There were passages in this book that were so beautiful, I couldn't help but read them over and over again. I've rarely come across a novel that takes me to places I never expected, and this one did just that. It is based on the life of Charles Jamrach, a 19th century London animal dealer, and an actual event in which a nine-year-old boy was carried off by a tiger. The novel uses this event as a starting point, and as unbelievable as it may be, Jamrach's Menagerie has much more in store and leaves the reader completely breathless as the story-line unspools. Carol Birch has the guts to tell the story in all its raw, disturbing glory, and it is utterly compelling. For a book that I wasn't much interested in reading, Jamrach's Menagerie delivered a giant sucker punch and left me wanting much more. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Nineteenth-century London comes vividly alive in this story a street urchin named Jaffy Brown. After a close call with an escaped tiger, Jaffy goes to work for Mr. Charles Jamrach, the famed importer of exotic animals. As the years pass, Mr. Jamrach recruits Jaffy and another boy named Tim to capture a fabled dragon during the course of an epic three-year whaling expedition in the East Indies. But when a violent storm sinks the ship, Jaffy and Tim are forced to confront their relationship to the natural world and the wildness it contains. Jamrach's Menagerie is a truly gripping novel about friendship, sacrifice, and survival.