The white bone

Barbara Gowdy

If, as many recent nonfiction bestsellers have revealed, animals possess emotions and awareness, they must have stories. In The White Bone, a novel imagined entirely from the perspective of African elephants, the most splendid of nature's creatures, Barbara Gowdy creates a world whole and separate that yet illuminates our own. For years, young Mud and her family have roamed the high grasses, swamps and deserts of sub-Saharan Africa. Now, however, the earth is scorched by drought, and the mutilated bodies of family and friends lie scattered on the ground, shot down by ivory hunters. Nothing - not the once-familiar terrain, or the age-old rhythms of life or even memory itself - seems reliable anymore. Yet a slim prophecy of hope is passed on from water hole to water hole: the only chance for survival is the mysterious white hone. And so, amid scenes of terrifying carnage and despair,...

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