Giraffe: A Novel [Hardcover]

J. M. Ledgard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 2006

An astounding novel based on the true story of the life and mysterious death of the largest herd of giraffes ever held in captivity, in a Czechoslovakian town sleepwalking through communism in the early 1970s

In 1975, on the eve of May Day, secret police dressed in chemical warfare suits sealed off a zoo in a small Czechoslovakian town and ordered the destruction of the largest captive herd of giraffes in the world. This apparently senseless massacre lies at the heart of J. M. Ledgard's haunting first novel, which recounts the story of the giraffes from their capture in Africa to their deaths far away behind the Iron Curtain. At once vivid and unearthly, Giraffe is an unforgettable story about strangeness, about creatures that are alien and silent, about captivity, and finally about Czechoslovakia, a middling totalitarian state and its population of sleepwalkers.

It is also a story that might never have been told. Ledgard, a foreign correspondent for the Economist since 1995, unearthed the long-buried truth behind the deaths of these giraffes while researching his book, spending years following leads throughout the Czech Republic. In prose reminiscent of Italo Calvino and W. G. Sebald, he imbues the story with both a gripping sense of specificity and a profound resonance, limning the ways the giraffes enter the lives of the people around them, the secrecy and fear that permeate 1970s Czechoslovakia, and the quiet ways in which ordinary people become complicit in the crimes committed in their midst.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This phantasmagoric debut novel by Economist correspondent Ledgard recounts the extermination of the world's largest captive herd of giraffes in a Czechoslovakian zoo in 1975. The story begins with the animals' 1973 capture in East Africa (narrated by Snehurka, the herd leader); then Emil, a haemodynamicist (a biologist who studies vertical blood flow), narrates their journey to the zoo, where the animals serve as entertainment for workers like Amina, who is fascinated by the giraffes and spends her free time with the silent creatures (they remind her of "a nation asleep, of workers normalized into sleepwalkers"). Other narrators come and go, including a virologist in a secret government laboratory and a forester/sharpshooter. Throughout, Emil ruminates on the ills of the Czech "Communist moment," but he is also this inventive novel's weakness, as he remains ungraspable and too much inside his dreamy, free-associative head. Once the giraffes are discovered to be diseased, their fate is sealed, and the novel's narrators converge as the government's secret plan to shoot the animals unfolds. Ledgard's novel has bursts of sparkling intensity—the giraffe massacre, told from the sharpshooter's point of view, is particularly wrenching—but a stronger cast of narrators would have better bolstered Ledgard's magnificent material. (On sale Aug 21)
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From The New Yorker

Based on the true story of the slaughter, in Czechoslovakia, in 1975, of the largest captive herd of giraffes, Ledgard's meditative novel creates a textured allegory for the country's oppression by its Communist regime. The story follows a hemodynamicist who has studied the giraffes, and a factory worker whose somnambulism is alleviated in their presence. Both are entranced by the creatures' stately aloofness, and when the order comes to kill the giraffes, which are infected with a contagious disease, they attempt to bring a measure of humanity to the workings of the state. Ledgard combines fine research with lyrical style; his description of a giraffe's astonishingly complex circulatory system is particularly memorable. The use of recurring images—mermaids, a rusalka (a Slavic water nymph)—conjures a world of fantasy and menace, balanced between dream and nightmare.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (August 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200998
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200991
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,311,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Horrors of Normalization, August 29, 2006

By 

Douglas Lytle (Prague, Czech Republic) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Giraffe: A Novel (Hardcover)

Those who did not live under Communism will never be able to fully appreciate the difficulty of day-to-day life or the way in which the state destroyed the complete Self - both physical and mental. Ledgard's book is a superb portrait of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, a time former President Vaclav Havel has said he cannot recall with much clarity because of the complete crushing of society by the government and the Soviet Union following the invasion in 1968. The process known as ``Normalization,'' was anything but. It was a systematic and brutal program to wipe out any resistance to the state and produce a docile population. Normalization divided families, costs thousands their jobs or lives, drove people out of the country and still haunts the people today. Ledgard's book is a dry-eyed and gripping look at a ghastly exercise in Thugology - the mass killing of the largest herd of giraffes outside their natural environment - and a sobering account of a period that is not often explored, especially by the Czechs themselves. Expertly rendered.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AFFECTING READINGS OF A LAMENTABLE STORY, September 8, 2006

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Giraffe: A Novel (Audio CD)

If purely fiction Giraffe would be a tragic story, sure to touch our hearts. However, the knowledge that it is based upon an actual incident serves to make Ledgard's strong narrative even more lamentable. This listener was not only saddened but incensed.

On a mild spring day in a small Czechoslovakian town 49 giraffes held in captivity were shot and dismembered. This was the largest herd of giraffes ever confined; twenty-three of them were pregnant. The slaughter was ordered by the communist government, with no explanation then or in time to come. These quiet, graceful animals had been caught in Africa and brought to a zoo.

The story of their capture and eventual massacre, in Ledgard's story, serves as a political parable as seen through the eyes of Emil, who traveled with the animals, Jiri, a shooter hired to kill the giraffes, and the most poignant observer of all, Snehurka, a giraffe cow.

There is much to ponder in Ledgard's well crafted tale, and much to appreciate in the narrative voices who give it life. A twenty year veteran of New York theatre, Jamie Heinlein is an affecting reader, mirroring innocence. Pablo Schreiber, remembered for his film roles in The Manchurian Candidate and Lords of Dogtown, offers a well paced, resonant narration. These two readers are an exemplary example of the richness that can be brought to the written word.

- Gail Cooke

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'One suffering connects to another and binds us, as joy binds us.', October 12, 2006

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Giraffe: A Novel (Hardcover)

'GIRAFFE: A Novel' is an extraordinary, poetic work, a book by first novelist J.M. Ledgard that relates a tale based on a true incident and makes it seem like a feat of magical realism. The language he uses is staggeringly beautiful, rich in descriptive allusions, rife with political overtones, and filled with compassionate nature that usually comes only with many years of writing. The book may disturb because of the topic, but to miss the exotic pleasure of reading Ledgard would be a tragedy: Ledgard has a gift, and imagination, and all the prerequisites for a successful career in letters.

The story, very briefly, tells of the travels of a group of some fifty giraffes from their native land to a zoo in Czechoslovakia in 1973 and their subsequent slaughter on May Day in 1975. Ledgard wisely names his chapters after the characters involved, beginning chapter one with Snehurka, a giraffe who narrates to us as it is being born and who is to become the head cow of the band of animals being transported. We then meet Emil, a hemodynamicist, who as a scientist accompanies the giraffes on train and barge to their destination, falling under the influence of Snehurka and the wonder of the magnificence of these anatomically bizarre animals. Once the animals are ensconced in the zoo we meet Hus the animal keeper; Amina a sleepwalking girl named after the main character of Bellini's opera `La Sonambula' who works in a Christmas ornament factory and connects with the animals in the zoo - especially the giraffes; Jiri, a sharpshooter whose job it will be to shoot the giraffes once the 'contagion among them' is discovered; Tadeas, a virologist, who assigns Emil with the task of collecting blood samples after the killings; and the various officials of the 'Communist moment' who direct the secret destruction of the giraffes and their disposal. Each of these characters becomes so palpably real (though they are fictitious creations based on the story of those who participated in the actual slaughter) that their interaction is understandable and gains our empathy. No small feat, this, but that is the quality of writing Ledgard gives us.

Ledgard repeats significant phrases such as 'the Communist moment' and 'we are bound together, all of us, by suffering, even more than joy' and mixes these philosophical and political messages with some of the most eloquently beautiful descriptions of the seasons and landscapes of Czechoslovakia ever written. He drives his message of the slaughter home but in a way that makes us feel as though this book is simply a novel and not reportage. The result is a book that contains memorable reading as well as a story that will disturb even the hardest of souls. It is a remarkable novel, all the more so for being a first effort! From his Mahler reference 'Ewig, ewig...' Grady Harp, October 06