Resident Book Review of “West With Giraffes”

Resident Elizabeth Fanto will review West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge [Seattle: Lake Union Publishing, 2021] on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.

“This is a story about a story,” Lynda Rutledge says about West With Giraffes. In 1999, she first discovered an account of two giraffes that survived a hurricane at sea and landed in New York City. They were destined for a zoo in California.  Years later she began to write more fiction and this story of a road trip and how it would be possible in the late 1930s intrigued her. This novel was published in 2020.

One reader said that she had written a travelog, a historical novel, a socialistic political commentary, a coming- of- age story and a love story all in one book. She likes that.

Her main character, a young boy named Woody, joined up with the head zoo keeper, Riley Jones(based on a real person), in a quest to transport the two giraffes to California in a truck. The entire nation was captured with the adventure of this story and followed their trip via newspaper articles.  Rutledge filled the novel with characters and events that make a great road trip story, similar to The Lincoln Highway. However, this had to be a single trip and she had to factor in how this could happen in that time period.

She also featured the legendary zoo director, who was the only woman zoo director for most of her life and championed natural habitats rather than cages, for the animals. She took years to research, using the few sources she had, her experiences as a travel writer and her knowledge of Texas and the Lee Highway. Her characters and many events are fictional and her style, she says, is “humorously serious.”

Before she became a novelist, Lynda Rutledge was a professional writer for over 25 years, working as a copywriter, restaurant and film reviewer, book collaborator, nonfiction author, travel writer and freelance journalist. Her debut novel was Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale, followed by this novel and Mockingbird Summer.

Resident Elizabeth Fanto taught English and Creative Writing for 25 years in Baltimore County Public Schools, retired, and then taught classes for 23 years at Renaissance Institute, a life-long learning program at Notre Dame University.  This is her first book review.