Book Description
Word count: 1068. ... Read more

Book Description
The Creative Non-Fiction and Cultural Journalism program at The Banff Centre allows writers a freedom they don't have in their everyday lives. Freedom to choose their own destinations. Freedom to arrive at some surprising places. The results of these literary travels are sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always thought-provoking. This is the third installment in the Banff Centre Press's cultural journalism series. ... Read more

Book Description
Elizabeth Smart, author of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, has long been seen as a woman determined by "Romantic" love. In this suggestive new look at her life, Kim Echlin shows that another--and powerful--source of her creativity was rooted in her fearless exploration of the female body and psyche--as daughter, lover of men and women, and mother of four children. Elizabeth Smart bucked tradition from the beginning. The daring and pain and elusive moments of joy in this extraordinary life are told through her diaries, poetry and prose. Echlin brings new material to bear on this reflection including a hundred interviews with family, friends and work colleagues, as well as never before seen letters in which Smart reflects on birth and female creativity. She highlights Elizabeth Smart's unwavering commitment to writing in a voice and aesthetic form that reflects authentic female experience. Smart's subject matters--women's sexuality and relationships--are timeless, but they have been viewed with a cocked eyebrow since the Wife of Bath. Echlin shows how Elizabeth Smart's fearless embrace of her own experience provides the raw life from which she created her art and challenged herself to live and speak her truth. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Elephant Winter is full of hushed wonders and harsher realities. When 30-year-old Sophie Walker returns to Canada to be with her dying mother, she thinks her stay will be temporary. While the two "settle into the daily business of waiting," she is drawn to her unlikely neighbors, the keeper of the Ontario Safari and his five elephants. Soon enough, in fact, Sophie falls for both Jo and his charges, and decides to record and explore elephant language and mores. Even in captivity, Sophie finds, these creatures strive for the greatest happiness and good for all, a far cry from the individualism of humans.

One visitor in particular is an almost allegorical representation of self-interest at any cost, and Jo seems incapable of banishing him. That would be Alecto Ryle. This unwelcome guest turns out to have made his reputation on sadistic experiments and autopsy reports, not to mention the massacres that enabled them--and now he's hanging around the Safari, waiting for one or more of the animals to die.

In her first novel, Kim Echlin can occasionally be expository, particularly in Sophie's five-part Elephant-English Dictionary. This is a very different beast from the glossary Barbara Gowdy created for The White Bone, but it also has its beauties. Describing one salute, Sophie admits that most keepers "hold in disdain people who romanticize elephants, but I have seen my elephants singing this evening song into the grey Ontario winter twilight. Their bodies appear to soften and shift like clouds on the rocky fields." Though Elephant Winter's human factor is itself gripping, Echlin's evocation of the intimate rapport between her heroine and the creatures she inherits can be sublime. After the matriarch, Kezia, loses her baby, she unshackles herself and escapes.

Through the darkness I finally saw her body, swaying down the road where horse farms and vegetable farms were strung like beads through the fields. She walked slowly and alone on that dark country road as if she were memorizing something. Drops of milk hung frozen from her breast.

Customer Reviews (4)

A gifted writer, spectacular in her love
'Elephant Winter' is about a young woman who returns home to Canada to look after her ailing mother.Her mother is dying of cancer but is determined to continue to do things she would normally do.The daughter, tired of being inside the house with artwork and bugies, soon becomes friends with Jo, the keeper of the elephants.He's a quiet, shallow man who worms his way into Sophie's effections.
A novel about love, lust, family and elephants, it is amazing to see the sameness that mammels and humans have. I loved Saba, Keiaz and Lear, the elephants.The elephants were not protrayed as animals but as humans with feelings and understandings.
It would be so lovely to be an owner of an elephant and feel the fingers of the trunk on your skin.To become to understand this great beast of nature.
The majestic creatures were interpreted by Echlin through sounds and songs.I particularly enjoyed the dictionary that she provided so that we could learn along with her.Although we will never be able to understand an elephant, it was interesting to learn nonetheless.
The relationship between Jo and Sophie was incredible, rich with agony and love.Nearly pure love.
Read this tale for yourself and you too will fall in love with Echlin and elephants.

Fine story, wonderfully told, by truly gifted writer.
A fine story, wonderfully told, by a truly accomplished writer. Deeply moving tale seems more real than fiction. About a young woman who returns home to help her mother go through the last dying stages of cancer andherself becomes involved with a small herd of captive elephants livingnearby at a private tourist attraction. I won't give away the details buturge you to read this book if you enjoy elephants and experiencingemotions.

A LYRICAL EVOCATION OF ELEPHANTS AND LOVE
How could any reader fail to be impressed by the originality and beauty of Ms. Eichlin's novel? A friend who has devoted his life to elephants gave me the book in Botswana's Okavango. I was immediately captivated by theauthor's almost mystical feeling for elephants. Her dictionary of elephantsounds is a triumph which several people who have spent their lives aroundelephants attest to. Altogether, this is a breathtaking opening act for atalent who will be around for a long long time.

Original idea.
I anticipated loving this book.I love Canada and I love winter, and I love good fiction.But I didn't love this book.I think the idea behind it is precious, but I was not satisfied by the content.The elephantdictionary was painful.The autopsy was shocking and dark, but not darkenough.The prose was not haunting or lyrical.So much more could havebeen described with the budgies and the artwork.The mute character wasnot developed to be dark until the end of the book.I was not suspiciousof him in the least.The love interest Jo, what a shallow character.Iwould have omitted the dictionary and developed all the characters andvisuals more.Rather than tell me what happened, I would have loved tohave been able to feel the cold and taste the smells. ... Read more

Book Description