Category — Book Review

A review of Ivory’s Ghosts: White Gold and the Fate of the Elephant by The Huffington Post.

Ivory’s Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants
18.25

The Huffington Post

“In The Elephant Keeper, his lush new novel of the late 18th century, Christopher Nicholson makes elephants his central characters, not just support acts. He tells the story of Jenny and Timothy, two elephants shipped to Bristol from India, and of their shy human protector Tom Page, who cares for them after his employer sets them up on his estate with the vague notion of breeding them for ivory. Naturally talented with animals, Tom manages the elephants’ food and medicines, rides them like a mahout, and even imagines that he can communicate with them in a private mental language. He drifts further from human companionship, and closer to his elephants, whom he studies through a combination of zoological observation and apparent mind-reading. ” – The Independent