Wrestling with Rhinos, a memoir from Saskatoon-based veterinary professor Dr. Jerry Haigh, follows Haigh’s exploits as a young veterinarian during the 10 years he spent in Kenya in the 1960s and 1970s. Less than a month after his graduation from veterinary school in Scotland, Haigh found himself treating a giraffe for foot rot. (Of his utter inexperience, Haigh remarks dryly “In 1965 there was a shortage of giraffes, lame or otherwise, in Glasgow.”)

While Haigh writes in some detail of his veterinary exploits, readers expecting a sub-equatorial James Herriot will likely be disappointed. Haigh writes with a curious remove from his exotic material, and his veterinary accounts quickly begin to read like catalogue entries. Readers will come away from Wrestling with Rhinos lacking any sense of Haigh himself, a critical failing in a memoir. The book is ultimately nothing more than a long sequence of events with little introspection or analysis.

The people in Haigh’s life don’t fare much better. Haigh’s clients and companions blur together, and even those closer to him lack substantial development (neither his wife, Jo, nor the trapper, Tony Parkenson, emerge as rounded characters).

Haigh obviously feels a deep love for Kenya, and his descriptions of the country are among the strongest passages in the book. Even stronger are Haigh’s accounts of his participation in rhinoceros relocation programs and an elephant cull and capture in Rwanda. Haigh’s vivid recollections and evaluations of the programs are balanced by a keen perspective gained from 30 years of reflection and history, making readers wish that Haigh had spent more effort on these subjects rather than trying to encapsulate his time in Kenya in so perfunctory a manner.