Barbara Gowdy has an utter affinity for the unconventional. In the title story of We So Seldom Look on Love, necrophilia is exquisite rather than execrable, and her wildly funny--and wildly affecting--novel Mister Sandman invites us into the hearts and minds of Toronto's least normal and most loving family. With The White Bone Gowdy continues her exploration of extraordinary lives, but this time human beings ("hindleggers") are on the periphery. And we're grateful when they're not around, since this gives her four-legged characters--elephants--a chance to survive.

The White Bone opens with five family trees. Gowdy's pachyderms include an orphaned visionary, She-Spurns (more familiarly known as Mud), and the "fine-scenter" She-Deflates, not to mention nurse cow She-Soothes and the bull Tall Time. (Though Gowdy's nomenclature may displease some readers, Dumbo wasn't exactly an inspiring name either.) Then, before her tragic narrative even begins, Gowdy offers a second feat of empathy and imagination, a glossary of elephant language. Afflicted by premonitions and obsessed with memory and safety, these animals have terms that range from the formal to the low, the metaphorical to the deeply physical: the "Eternal Shoreless Water" is oblivion, a "sting" is a bullet, and a "flow-stick" a snake. Of course, if you have "trunk," you possess "soulfulness; depth of spirit"--something every participant in Gowdy's fourth novel desperately needs. Initially, her characters' impressions of familiar objects are amusing, but bright comedy precedes dark tragedy. Witness Mud's take on jeeps: "On their own, vehicles prefer to sleep, but whenever a human burrows inside them they race and roar and discharge a foul odour." Needless to say, such speeding tends to precede a killing fest.

Alas, this is a book heavy with omens and slaughter, and Gowdy makes each elephant so individual, so conscious, that their separate fates are impossible to bear. When Tall Time, for instance, hears a helicopter, nothing, not even Gowdy's poetry, can save him: "The shots that pelt his hide feel as light as rain. It is bewildering to be brought down under their little weight." As the devastation increases, and her characters fail, and fail again, to find the magical white bone that should lead them to safety, the novel becomes a litany of pain and death. The only success is Barbara Gowdy's, in getting so thoroughly under the skin of her elephantine protagonists. --Kerry Fried


From Publishers Weekly
Gowdy, the prodigiously talented Canadian author who caused a stir with Mister Sandman and We So Seldom Look on Love, writes with such immediacy and vigor that she can take a reader almost anywhere. In this novel, however, she has chosen to inhabit the minds of a series of elephants in African desert country, and despite her great skill and the colossal effort of imaginative empathy it must have entailed, her book is hard going. For a start, as in one of those vast generational sagas, there are endless family trees to sort out, and since the elephant families are whimsically named, always after the matriarchal leaders (the She-S's, the She-B's-And-B's, etc.), the relationships are difficult to come to grips with. The book is a series of quests, carried out against the fierce odds of a frightful drought and the occasional murderous intervention of ivory-seeking "hind-leggers." Little Mud, who has visions, is crippled and seeking her family; Date Bed, a "mind talker" shot in an ambush and given up for dead, is being sought by her family; all are seeking the Safe Place, a sort of elephant heaven that is located by throwing the iconic White Bone so that it points in the right direction. There is a great deal of interesting elephant lore, about the nature of their fabulous memory, their scenting and tracking skills, their eating, drinking and fornicating habits. Without being overly anthropomorphic, Gowdy manages to individualize a number of them as having human-scale emotions, even humor; and they have religious songs (lauding the She) that sound wonderfully like Victorian hymns. But despite her skillsAperhaps even because of themAthe reader is disappointed that so talented a writer could have exerted so much effort on so unpromising a subject. 50,000 first printing; BOMC selection; author tour. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The mysticism and majesty of the African elephant loses no honor in Gowdy's new novel. As Gowdy (Mister Sandman, LJ 4/1/97) tells of Mud, Tall-Time, and She-Swaggers and the trials their herd faces in their sub-Saharan home, she portrays an elephant culture replete with visionary matriarchs, where the elephants live with a deep, protective love for one another and a healthy respect for the life around them. The grasslands, swamps, and deserts have long been a safe home for the elephants, but years of drought and the deadly ivory trade have taken a devastating tollAnine out of ten of the elephants are slaughtered for their tusks. The survivors disperse, struggling to make it from one water hole to the next and grasping at the prophetic hope of the "sacred white bone," which is supposed to direct them to safety. This masterfully crafted novel is highly recommended for all libraries.-ACarolyn Ellis Gonzalez, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio Libs. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Sarah Boxer
You can see that the novel is plenty funny and plenty odd...


The Times, London, Bel Mooney
As a feat of imagination and sheer industry it must be applauded.


The Guardian, Alex Clark
Gowdy is a strong and sympathetic writer, capable of conveying real emotion even in the most removed of settings. In this way, we can inhabit the world of her heroine, Mud, an orphan who struggles to cope with her "third eye," which tells her unceasingly of dangers to come. We can momentarily understand, in the wake of an elephant massacre, what it might be like to lose 23 members of your family rather than just one, and how it might feel to move from place to place in search of sanctuary.


From Kirkus Reviews
From the enormously gifted Gowdy (Mister Sandman, 1997, etc.), a mesmerizing journey into the heart of Africa and a maternal society of elephants slipping rapidly into extinction. Africas elephants are being decimated by an unending drought and slaughtered in unprecedented numbers for their tusks and feet. Young Mud, adopted into the She-S matriarchal group after they found her nearly crushed beneath her dead mother (and named for the life-saving circumstances of her birth), is now just old enough to carry her first calf. But this ordinarily joyous occasion in an elephant's life is destined to be otherwise when the She-S band, taking refuge in a swamp, is surprised by poachers and within a few moments nearly obliterated. The few survivors scatter in fear, then attempt to find each other while also seeking the White Bone, a mystical object that, according to elephant legend, will lead the finder to the Safe Place where drought and hunters cannot enter. Separated from her lifelong friend, Date Bed, whos able to communicate telepathically with all creatures except humans, Mud searches for her with a few others, including Date Bed's mother. Meanwhile, Tall Time, father of Mud's calf, is on a lonely quest of his own for the White Bonea quest that takes him to the land of the Lost Ones, distantly related elephants who have evolved into smaller, mountain-dwelling visionaries. Though the White Bone is eventually found, death continues to claim those seeking it, and in the end nearly everything depends on the ability of Mud and her newborn calf merely to survive. Warmly conveying a remarkably full vision of elephant life, as well as the almost incomprehensible tragedy of species annihilation, Gowdy has created an astonishingly moving saga. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month-Club selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Inspired . . . A marvel of a book . . . The language, social structure, intellectual and spiritual world of elephants are as real as the fabric of human life. Absolutely compelling."--Alice Munro

"Gowdy's chief accomplishment is that she manages genuinely to entrench us in the elephant psyche . . . dazzling . . . Gowdy renders this arid African landscape with a subtle gorgeousness reminiscent of Isak Dinesen."--The Boston Globe

"Gowdy here performs her greatest creative feat yet . . . Gowdy conjures a vibrantly visceral world . . . The White Bone presents a lyrical educated guess on what elephant consciousness might feel like - including, most sadly and movingly, the perpetual threat of extinction. "--Entertainment Weekly

"Fascinating . . . Through the course of The White Bone we come to care about the elephants as much as we would humans."--Judy Doenges, The Seattle Time

"Written like an indigenous legend, The White Bone is about the burden of memory . . . Readers who make it through will never think the same of elephants and their 'appalling resilience.'"--Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

"Gowdy [has a] great gift for sensual description...The novel is plenty funny and plenty odd."--Sarah Boxer, The New York Times Book Review

"Compelling . . .The White Bone takes place in a self-sufficient and brilliantly authentic world . . . Impressive and delightful." --Jelena Petrovic, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A richly detailed novel." -New York Daily News
"Brave . . . Gowdy has embarked on the creation of an extremely distinct, invented world, with its own social and linguistic structures, its own myths and totems." -Claire Messud, Newsday



Book Description
A thrilling journey into the minds of African elephants as they struggle to survive.

If, as many recent nonfiction bestsellers have revealed, animals possess emotions and awareness, they must also have stories. In The White Bone, a novel imagined entirely from the perspective of African elephants, 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 the sub-Sahara. Now 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 sacred white bone of legend will point the elephants toward the Safe Place. And so begins a quest through Africa's vast and perilous plains-until at last the survivors face a decisive trial of loyalty and courage.

In The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy performs a feat of imagination virtually unparalleled in modern fiction. Plunged into an alien landscape, we orient ourselves in elephant time, elephant space, elephant consciousness and begin to feel, as Gowdy puts it, "what it would be like to be that big and gentle, to be that imperiled, and to have that prodigious memory."



About the Author
Barbara Gowdy is the author of five previous books, including Mister Sandman and We So Seldom Look On Love, and she has twice been a finalist for both the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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, begins the quest of Mud and her family for the bone that, legend holds, will point them toward the Safe Place. Their journey takes them through Africa's vast dessicated plains, where they meet with injury and starvation, ruthless poachers and rapacious carnivores, lone nomadic bulls and unexpected allies - until at last the survivors find themselves facing a final, chilling trial of loyalty and courage. Plunged into an alien arid landscape, we gradually orient ourselves in elephant time, elephant space, elephant consciousness. And we begin to imagine, as Gowdy puts it "what it would be like to be that big and gentle, to be that imperiled, and to have that prodigious memory."

FROM THE CRITICS

KLIATT

The thoughts and ideas of elephants—a different tack to take with a novel, yet this is the basic premise of this story. The protagonist, Mud, is a cow (female) elephant. She is part of an adopted family because her mother died at her birth. We meet Mud and the other elephants as they head into some terrible times. They must face a drought as well as vicious hindleggers (humans). Many of Mud's family are mercilessly slaughtered for their tusks; other elephant families are similarly decimated. Mud and other survivors try to find each other, and to locate water and food. They are also on a quest for the "safe place." The latter is some mysterious locale where they can live in peace without fear from predators. A white bone tossed in the air will show them the way to this place. As the elephants wander alone and in groups, the author offers insights into their thoughts, feelings and abilities. She did quite a bit of research and does provide views of how elephants live. It is a bit disjointed and often hard to keep track of the various elephants since they all seem to have two names. Detailed family trees are given, along with a glossary and a map of the area. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1998, St. Martin's/Picador, 329p, 21cm, $14.00. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Robin S. Holab-Abelman; Libn., US Court, Mobile, AL, September 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 5)

Library Journal

The mysticism and majesty of the African elephant loses no honor in Gowdy's new novel. As Gowdy (Mister Sandman, LJ 4/1/97) tells of Mud, Tall-Time, and She-Swaggers and the trials their herd faces in their sub-Saharan home, she portrays an elephant culture replete with visionary matriarchs, where the elephants live with a deep, protective love for one another and a healthy respect for the life around them. The grasslands, swamps, and deserts have long been a safe home for the elephants, but years of drought and the deadly ivory trade have taken a devastating toll--nine out of ten of the elephants are slaughtered for their tusks. The survivors disperse, struggling to make it from one water hole to the next and grasping at the prophetic hope of the "sacred white bone," which is supposed to direct them to safety. This masterfully crafted novel is highly recommended for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/99; for another elephant novel, see Kim Echlin's Elephant Winter, reviewed p. 125.--Ed.]--Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio Libs. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Sarah Boxer - The New York Times Book Review

...[A] big religious put-on, an elepahntine Pilgrim's Progress....[T]he novel is plenty funny and plenty odd....Gowdy [has a] great gift for parody and [an] even greater gift for sensual, gross-out description.

Bob Minzesheimer - USA Today

...it's a novel for only the most imaginative readers, or at least those who are willing to accept elephants as sardonic and lascivious.

Kirkus Reviews

From the enormously gifted Gowdy (Mister Sandman, 1997, etc.), a mesmerizing journey into the heart of Africa and a maternal society of elephants slipping rapidly into extinction. Africa's elephants are being decimated by an unending drought and slaughtered in unprecedented numbers for their tusks and feet. Young Mud, adopted into the She-S matriarchal group after they found her nearly crushed beneath her dead mother (and named for the life-saving circumstances of her birth), is now just old enough to carry her first calf. But this ordinarily joyous occasion in an elephant's life is destined to be otherwise when the She-S band, taking refuge in a swamp, is surprised by poachers and within a few moments nearly obliterated. The few survivors scatter in fear, then attempt to find each other while also seeking the White Bone, a mystical object that, according to elephant legend, will lead the finder to the Safe Place where drought and hunters cannot enter. Separated from her lifelong friend, Date Bed, who's able to communicate telepathically with all creatures except humans, Mud searches for her with a few others, including Date Bed's mother. Meanwhile, Tall Time, father of Mud's calf, is on a lonely quest of his own for the White Bone—a quest that takes him to the land of the Lost Ones, distantly related elephants who have evolved into smaller, mountain-dwelling visionaries. Though the White Bone is eventually found, death continues to claim those seeking it, and in the end nearly everything depends on the ability of Mud and her newborn calf merely to survive. Warmly conveying a remarkably full vision of elephant life, as well as the almost incomprehensible tragedy of speciesannihilation, Gowdy has created an astonishingly moving saga. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month-Club selection; author tour) .