His arms and legs bore the faint scratches of acacia thorns. As usual, he was clad in his safari khakis and an air of quiet self-assurance. Mick was thirty-two, with light brown hair and the permanent tan of someone who has grown up in the African bush. A few stood and snaked their trunks toward a human who moved up and down the line of crates, replenishing their water, murmuring reassurance. Now they were woozy and not particularly hungry. Before they were loaded into the plane, they had been sedated. The elephants were confined in eleven metal crates inside the semidarkness of the freighter jet's cavernous hold. The date was August 21, 2003, a Thursday morning that stretched on and on. All were headed for zoos in San Diego and Tampa. All of these elephants were wild, extracted at great expense and through staggering logistics from their herds inside game reserves in Swaziland. These were not circus animals, accustomed to captivity. Nothing could have prepared them for what they were experiencing. Inside the belly of a Boeing 747, eleven young elephants were several hours into a marathon flight from South Africa to the United States. And yet there it was, playing out high above the Atlantic.

The scene sounds like a dream conjured by Dalí. Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature. The sweeping narrative takes the reader from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco. Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants. Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi and Beatrice and Virgil “An insightful and detailed look at the complex life of a zoo and its denizens, both animal and human.” Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author He took real life and wrote it down for us, with eloquence and feeling and aching detail.” Tom French did in this book what he always does. It takes you inside the human heart, and an elephant’s, and a primate’s, and on and on. “This story, told by a master teller of such things, does more than take you inside the cages, fences, and walls of a zoo.

Zoo story by thomas french