Kristina Gehrmann, Ten Speed Press (2018), page 254 This is an ordinary family, maybe not too educated and a bit naïve, but not prone to vices, and one would think – “what could go wrong?” There are children in the family and, obviously, parents want the best for them. Rudkus’s family is kind, friendly, hard-working and flexible and, though prepared to embrace the American life-style, still wants to retain their culture and traditions, including having an expensive wedding. The Jungle details the immigrants’ life in a foreign country from a perspective which is only too intimate and thus, later, quite shocking, making the readers care about one family from Lithuania who sacrificed a lot by fleeing their impoverished native land and now see America as their hope and future, a progressive and rich country with lots of land and opportunities. Though I have not yet read the original novel by Sinclair, I found this graphic adaptation deeply moving, offering an uncomfortable, yet valuable insight into Sinclair’s vision and the conditions of blue-collar workers in early twentieth-century Chicago. This family comprising of three generations is soon hit very hard by the “hidden costs” of their American Dream, which becomes very hard to bear, especially when most factories close in winter and the mercilessness of the family’s employers and landlords leads to traumatic experiences. His fiancée Ona starts working in packaging, while her cousin Marija begins painting cans, and even Jurgis’s elderly father tries to land some job in order not to be dependent on others, among other family members. Jurgis Rudkus is a twenty-one year old man eager to work at any job in America and soon finds himself in a meat-processing factory, working in very unhygienic and even horrifying environment. This graphic novel is based on a classic novel by Upton Sinclair The Jungle that tells of a Lithuanian family of immigrants who arrive to Chicago, Illinois in 1899 and find their hopes slowly turning to dust as they all take jobs exploiting them and their desperate need to survive in the foreign country.

“ Sometimes even to live is an act of courage” (Seneca). “The opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is enough” (Dr.

The jungle book 1906