An alternative history built from two real American atrocities: the 1916 death of circus elephant Topsy and the “Radium Girls”, factory workers poisoned by radioactive paint in the early twentieth century.

Bolander folds the histories together and then detonates them, imagining a world in which elephants possess language, memory and political consciousness, and are drawn into the same machinery of industrial exploitation. The novella moves between timelines and voices — workers, elephants, managers, myth — refusing the clean separation between human and animal suffering.

Bolander’s elephants become archivists of injury, carrying stories across generations while corporations attempt the more familiar trick of turning damage into acceptable collateral. 

Tor.com / Tom Doherty Associates, New York, 2018. First edition. Paperback. Very light shelf wear; internally clean and unmarked, binding firm. Near fine condition.