Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

A action-packed, fun book with a great plot.  The story of a young man whose sudden terrible misfortune lands him on a circus train during the Depression alternates with his view of life in the nursing home when he is 90 or, he says, perhaps 93.   He encounters a dwarf and his beloved dog, an elephant who understands commands in Polish but not English, a paranoid schizophrenic, and the love of his life.  He is beaten within an inch of his life, leaps at great peril from train car to train car in the night with a knife between his teeth, murder in his mind, and it goes on.  The nursing home passages are a nice contrast.