The recent novel West With Giraffes appeared in 2021. Linda Rutledge is the author, and this is the first book by her that I’ve read. How did she do?

West With Giraffes Summary

The plot of the book is both basic and original. It’s original in the sense that West With Giraffes is a story most people have never heard of. Two giraffes are bound for New York City by ship in 1938 when a hurricane strikes the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. Miraculously, they survive. But their final destination is the San Diego Zoo. They must travel across the U.S. by modified flatbed truck to reach San Diego.

That part of the plot is very original. New to me, at least, and, I’d imagine, new to most readers. In other respects, however, the plot is quite basic. It’s a quest story, and a very typical one.

An unexpected hero, Woodrow Wilson Nickel, must rise to the occasion of delivering the giraffes safely. He has a veteran guide to help him along. They get unexpected company in the form of a female magazine photographer. Challenges arise. Woody and friends overcome the challenges. Unexpected secrets get revealed. Romance might happen.

Standard stuff for a story with a quest. But, there’s a reason why so many books follow this plan. Readers like it when the story is done well. So, how does West With Giraffes do for credibility?

West With Giraffes Analysis

Someone who wanted to be picky could have a field day criticizing this book. The narrator’s name, for one thing. Woody Nickel. One 1920s expression was to “take a wooden nickel.” It meant to do something stupid. Woody Nickel does plenty of stupid things.

But would someone born in the Texas Panhandle in 1920 be named after Woodrow Wilson? Far more likely, if one wanted to name a newborn after a politician on the Great Plains, was William Jennings Bryan, the Nebraska populist and Democratic presidential candidate. Bryan was Secretary of State for some of the Wilson administration and was a much more popular figure in the nation’s heartland.

Then we have the fact that Woody Nickel writes down his story at age 105, apparently with a clear memory of everything that happened to him 87 years ago. May we all have such a memory. Yet, he does so while hallucinating that one of the giraffes he took to San Diego all those years back is watching him from the window of his nursing home.

Put simply, West With Giraffes requires considerable suspension of disbelief just to get into the story.

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How is the Storytelling?

Woody Nickel must be quite a sympathetic character to make up for all of that, right?

Not so. He lies and steals throughout the story. Woody falls for another man’s wife. He doesn’t even refer to his companions by their names. The older Woody is also an xxxhole to the staff at his nursing home.

I guess we’re supposed to like him because

1 – The Dust Bowl killed his family.

2 – Giraffes are awesome.

3 – Woody loves the giraffes.

Did I mention that he goes days without sleeping, and then drives the giraffes all day without ever mentioning that he’s tired?

Wrapping it Up

When I started writing this book review, I actually didn’t mean to be quite so critical. But the more I thought about the book, the more ridiculous most of the story seemed.

So, I’ll write a few good things here. If all you care about is a story that centers around charismatic or noble animals like giraffes, then this book will appeal to you. If you enjoy stories that give a reasonable portrayal of the hardscrabble 1930s, then there’s something for you here. Likewise, if you enjoy reading about how traveling America used to be before interstate highways made distance travel the boring, monotonous, yet relatively speedy experience that they are today.

I can also say that the actual writing wasn’t bad at all. I never liked the narrator’s tone and style. But from a technical standpoint, Rutledge did a good job of keeping Woody in character throughout the narrative.

So, to sum up, I liked the original story behind West With Giraffes. The storytelling was quality in terms of giving us America in the 1930s. But the narrator’s style was a major turn-off for me. I didn’t really like the main character, either. Finally, I thought many parts of the story strained credulity, even by literary standards.

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