CBR14 BINGO: Elephant Square
(Another literal one. Sometimes googling for the square yields great results, sometimes not so much. )
In 1940s Belfast, a young woman working at the local zoo sees the arrival of a new baby elephant as her opportunity to prove herself. Hoping to become the first female zookeeper at the Belfast zoo, Hettie quickly takes on the responsibility of handling the elephant in addition to all of the menial responsibilities delegated to her.
Work is her escape after Hettie’s father abandons the family and her older sister dies in childbirth. Left alone in the house together, she and her mother are strangers in their grief. They go through the motions of living but never really connect. Hettie throws herself into her work to keep her away from her mother’s quiet loneliness and strives to make a better life for herself on her terms. Mostly. Until she doesn’t.
This book went off the rails about 1/3 of the way through. It started as a story about a curious and determined young woman who wanted more from her life than she was expected to. Unfortunately, it quickly morphed into a story about a wishy-washy ingenue whose agency disappeared the minute a boy winked at her. Hettie’s character pretty much devolved into a puddle of hormones and poor choices in men. While Hettie’s naivete regarding men might be understandable given the time and place, her knowledge about her own father’s serial philandering should have been enough of an education to give her pause. That her determination to carve out a future for herself was so easily waylaid didn’t jibe with the first part of the book either.
Honestly, the best part here was the backdrop of Belfast during wartime. I could have done with a story centered on the complicated head zookeeper who suffered shellshock from the first World War. Unable to connect easily with people, he found solace in his ability to understand and sympathize with the zoo’s animals.
The writing was very atmospheric if a little bit heavy-handed, but Walsh did a good job of creating mood and a sense of place. Unfortunately, inconsistent and unbelievable characters made the book, on the whole, not work for me.