Larger Than Life (Novella)

By Jodi Picoult

From Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Storyteller and My Sister’s Keeper, comes a gripping and beautifully written novella, now available exclusively as an eBook. Set in the wilds of Africa, Larger Than Life introduces Alice, the unforgettable character at the center of Picoult’s anticipated new novel, Leaving Time.
 
A researcher studying memory in elephants, Alice is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf—the mother’s powerful protective instincts and her newborn’s unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat—while following an important rule: She must only observe and never interfere. Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Thinking back on her own childhood, and on her shifting relationship with her mother, Alice risks her career to care for the calf. Yet what she comes to understand is the depth of a parent’s love.
 
Praise for Jodi Picoult
 
“Picoult is a skilled wordsmith, and she beautifully creates situations that not only provoke the mind but touch the flawed souls in all of us.”—The Boston Globe
 
“Picoult is a rare writer who delivers book after book, a winning combination of the literary and the commercial.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Jodi Picoult’s novels do not gather dust on the bedside table. They are gobbled up quickly and the readers want more.”—Los Angeles Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9780553392104

Jodi Picoult

JODI PICOULT is ’n gewilde en geliefde skrywer van etlike topverkopers, waaronder My Sister’s Keeper, The Storyteller en Small Great Things. Sowat 40 miljoen eksemplare van haar boeke is tans wêreldwyd in druk. Twee van haar boeke is al in Afrikaans vertaal – Die Belydenis (Plain Truth) en Negentien Minute (Nineteen Minutes). Meer as 25 romans het al uit haar pen verskyn en haar werk is al in 34 tale vertaal. My Sister’s Keepers is ook in ’n rolprent omskep. Picoult is al verskeie kere bekroon, onder meer met die New England Book Award.

Book preview

Larger Than Life is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2014 Ballantine eBook Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Jodi Picoult

Excerpt of Leaving Time copyright © 2014 by Jodi Picoult

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-553-39210-4

www.ballantinebooks.com

Cover design: Gabrielle Bordwin

Cover photograph: gungerguni/Getty Images

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1999, Botswana

Excerpt from Leaving Time

About the Author

Other Books by This Author

1999, Botswana

Moments after receiving the worst news of my life, I drive into the middle of a massacre.

The five elephants lie on their sides, dusty hills, aberrations in the landscape. Flies swarm around the black blood that has seeped into the dirt, and overhead spins a pinwheel of vultures.

I park the Land Rover beneath a mopane tree and walk toward the bodies. I am looking for signs of life, although I know I won’t find them. I’m not sure how the poachers took this herd down. They use guns and spears, sometimes arrows poisoned with acokanthera. I’ve heard of watering holes being contaminated, of the elephants dropping like boulders after they drink.

The largest elephant is one I recognize. Karabo has a half-moon torn from her right ear, which is now draped over her face like a shroud. I fold back the skin as I would smooth clean sheets on a bed, revealing the gash in her flesh. Her face is a blunt cliff of brow where her trunk and the tusks have been sheared away.

I lean over and get sick in the brush, bracing my hands on my knees. Pull yourself together, Alice, I tell myself. You have a job to do.

I have seen death in the bush before, and there is always a protocol. When an elephant dies, we researchers dutifully record the place and time of death in the data we keep on the herds. We contact a ranger, so that the tusks can be removed before villagers can come at night to cut them away, to sell them on the black market. We leave the carcass to the vultures and the jackals and the hyenas. But what are we supposed to do when the tusks are already missing? When they were the reason for the slaughter?

I’ve been told that the Chinese believe elephants shed their tusks like deer shed their antlers, that they have no idea that the ivory pendants and carvings they covet come at so great a cost. They also don’t realize the collateral damage: In addition to the five elephants from this herd who were slaughtered, there are more who ran frantically from the poachers—and who no longer have a matriarch to lead them to food and water, to steer them away from danger. When the matriarch is gone, so is the herd’s collective memory.

In this moment, it’s too much for me, and I start to cry. Because bad things happen all the time. Because I am too late. Because yesterday these elephants were part of a family, and today they are not.

Maybe it is the noise I’m making, maybe it is just a shift in the wind that carries the scent of me—too human—across the bush. But suddenly there is a rustling sound that draws my attention. I look up and see an elephant calf, so young that her trunk still dangles like a broken comma, peeking from behind the mountain of her dead mother’s spine.

She can’t be much older than a week or two; she’s less than three feet tall at the shoulder. The calf pushes against the body, trying to rouse her mother. She stretches her trunk toward her mother’s mouth, which is how she would normally check in for comfort, but there is no mouth anymore.

There is no mother.

Hey, sweetheart, I soothe, keeping my voice low, which is what elephants like. Hey, now, you’re all right.

I move forward before I can think better of it. She may not be a full-grown elephant, but she still easily outweighs me by more than 150 pounds. I do not want her to startle and run—and yet I know she won’t. She will stand by her mother’s body until she wastes away.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Until a few months ago, I worked in South Africa, at Madikwe Game Reserve. The elephants there were juveniles, survivors of the massive culls in the Kruger Park that were meant to control the elephant population through the mid-1990s. From a helicopter, government hunters would dart the matriarch with scoline, which is prohibited for human use because it causes total paralysis while conscious. When the matriarch fell, the members of her herd would bunch around her, confused and frantic. Without the matriarch telling them where and when to run, the rest were easy to kill. The calves were spared, and because they would not leave their mothers’ bodies, they were rounded up with no difficulty. They were sent to zoos and circuses overseas, or put together in forced herds on reserves, like the one in Madikwe. The hope had been that these orphans could form new family units, together. But that wasn’t how it worked out, in the long run. They became abnormally aggressive in the absence of the social guidance they would have been given by a matriarch in the wild.

There had never been culling here in Botswana, so there are no reserves for orphans here. If I let my new boss, Grant, know that I’ve found this calf, I will be told to let nature take its course.

I get close enough to the calf to see the hairs that sprout from her head, the dark smudges of her eyes.

The job of scientists is to study wildlife but not to interfere with it. That’s why we are called naturalists. Yet there have been too many times in the past year when I’ve wondered if that might just be an excuse for not having to be held responsible when something goes terribly wrong.

The calf and I both startle as one of the vultures dives like a missile, landing on the body of the elephant, pecking at the raw flesh. I turn, flailing my arms and shouting until the bird rises into the sky again, momentarily eclipsing the sun.

When I look back at the calf, she takes two steps closer, and that’s when I know that I’m going to break all the rules. Again.

I was ten years old, standing on an overturned crate behind a podium, trying desperately not to throw up. My hands were sweaty and my knees were banging together, and through the sea of faces in the audience, I was searching for the only one who mattered. She knew that our presentations were today. She’d promised me she would be there.

The life of an elephant and the life of a human, I said, barely audible, are not so different. My fingers clutched the watercolor painting I’d done of an African elephant; I had to make a conscious effort to relax my grip. I knew that my face was red and that everyone was staring at me because of it, which only

[maryreinert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel is really all about the unique and interesting qualities of elephants-- how they nurture their young, how they co-mother; how they grieve and how they never seem to forget. Threaded throughout is the story of a young girl, Jenna, who is supposedly searching for her mother who disappeared from a hospital when Jenna was a toddler. Alice, her mother, has a doctorate living in South Africa studying how elephants grieve. She meets Thomas, also with a doctorate who runs an elephant sanctuary in New Hampshire. They fall in love, marry, have this daughter. Thomas develops mental problems; Alice falls in love with another elephant care taker. Jenna finds Serenity, a psychic, and Virgil, a dishonored policeman, who help her search. Who is really alive, who is a ghost or spirit, who is dead. A bit too contrived, but the stuff about the elephants was interesting.

[illarai · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While this style of novel isn't the kind I would normally be attracted to, I picked it up because I felt a sense of obligation to read one of Picoult's novels after using a quote from her so often. ("You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.") I'm glad I decided to familiarize myself with her work because this book was riveting. Elephant behavioral scientists (or maybe they're just specialized biologists?) conduct their research in the wild and in a rural space where an elephant sanctuary has been set up. The story begins with their daughter ten years after one of them has been institutionalized and the other had disappeared. Picoult has definitely done her research to make the elephants more real and it gives them just as much depth as her human characters (maybe more). There are some beautiful moments in this book of bonding and grief and fighting to regain control of your life. This book is a wild ride that did not go where I expected it to and had me tearing up at the end.

[tedski_tx · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I love elephants, and I'm fascinated by their intelligence and behavior.

This book was dull as dishwater. There is no doubt, the author did her research. The problem is, she did not weave any of the facts she learned into a compelling story. It was all just so pedestrian. (The author's Afterword, in which she tells of the plight of the elephant today, was infinitely more interesting.) And then she intertwined the elephant story into a hackneyed mystery involving the most cliché characters -- the alcoholic ex-cop-now-private-detective, a petulant teen-aged girl, and a pink-haired clairvoyant who spouts the most sophomoric spiritual nonsense.

And all of this, then, gets wrapped up by an incredibly poor rip-off of The 6th Sense twist ending. Unlike that movie, where, when you went back and replayed certain scenes, you could see how it all made sense, the author, here, rehashes certain moments in a similar way, but it is all contrived and unconvincing.

No more Jodi Picoult for me.

[itsbookishme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really interesting read. Learned a lot about elephants, I have even more appreciation and respect for the species. At one point I guessed at the twist when a particular scene kind of gave it away but then another twist made me change my mind. In the end my original guess was correct but it was even more than I thought. The narration gave the journey through this book a in pursuit of the truth kind of momentum for me. I felt like an investigator trying to get it all figured out and that is what made it such a very intriguing read for me.

[dknight0918 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it, of course.

[castlelass · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A thirteen-year-old girl searches for her mother with help from a detective and a psychic. I tried this book a while ago and set it aside, since the premise seems absolutely unbelievable. A psychic? Really? So, I finally decided to finish it for a group read. The girl's mother was conducting a research project in Botswana, studying grief in elephants. I think the author wanted to share the plight of these animals, and perhaps should have written non-fiction about them. There is a lot of good material about elephants, but it is handled through “information dumping,” which feels forced. It is told in multiple points of view with flashbacks. There is a lot of sadness here. It is not particularly well-constructed and lacks flow. Of course, there needs to be a big twist at the end (I’m not a fan of these). So, overall, it was okay for me.

If you want to read about grief in elephants, I recommend The Elephant Whisperer and An Elephant in My Kitchen.

[jldarden · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first Picoult. Enjoyed her writing, the story and the character interactions.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jodi Picoult fans know going in that she’s going to throw the reader a curve ball that seemingly comes from nowhere and knocks all preconceptions and assumptions into the middle of next week. ‘Leaving Time’ is no exception. This novel’s twist will leave you breathless. Guaranteed.

It starts with three people who have lost something – a young teen who lost her mother, a psychic who lost her gift, and an ex-cop who has lost his faith. Together, they try to follow a crumbling trail that leads back a decade, to a night of violent death and heartbreaking abandonment.

Picoult uses the background of elephant research to give the book an interesting slant and to provide both questions and answers about their behavior, particularly in how elephant societies are structured and how they deal with death and grief. It works nicely with the main themes of memory, loss, and trauma, and even though the reader will think they understand what Picoult is doing with her foreshadowing, they’ll be wrong. Looking backward, there are clues and indications of what she’s building, but they are inserted so smoothly and fit what appears to be the action of the plot so organically that they simply fly in under the radar.

Read this book. Enjoy it. Be surprised as hell at the ending. And have a Kleenex handy for the last couple of chapters.

[bevfuller · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved it until the end, where it got really weird.

[pollyannapitbull · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Odd...

Interesting but odd. Characters were well developed and the plot had you hooked but the end...just not for me. Enjoyed her other books so much more.

[marquis784-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amazing! The author's compassion for elephant poaching is detailed extensively in the novel. Although a book of fiction, the research and stories of the elephants were based on a real elephant conservatory. It was daunting in the beginning as the story was unfolding with all the detailed information about elephants. As the story progressed with many questions needing answers, the author keenly tells several stories which parallel each other. I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns which ultimately left me wondering right up to the end.

[lasvegasbookie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5. The elephant research was excellent, but the story line, well, it just didn't ring true for me. The ending was interesting, unexpected.

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully moving story of how elephants and humans care for each other. And - although I have read many Jodi Picoult books, and always get surprised by the twists, I did not see this one coming. Interesting.

[bookczuk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's been a long time since I read a Jodi Picoult, and this was a good return vehicle. My husband asked me what it was about, and I jokingly said 'A kid, a cop, and a psychic walk into an elephant preserve one da...'.
Not Picoult's usual formula (as I remember it), which I kept waiting for, while periodically noting inconsistencies or bits that I wondered how slipped past the editor (which when I finally caught on to what the big reveal would be, made me feel good as a reader that I'd picked them up. I just didn't do the full math with them until well into the book.)
Glad I picked it up to try this author again. Especially loved the meaning behind the title.

[ajlewis2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely awesome book! It is a very intriguing story with several points of view which Picoult does so well: teenage girl, missing mother, psychic who used to be very good at it, cop who is hiding his identity, and the girl's father who is in a mental hospital. Every character is rich and memorable. There is a mystery that slowly comes to light with such engaging interactions in the process. The story contains lots of information about elephants woven into the story. The audio production I listened to is excellent with the different voices. I highly recommend this book.

[abycats_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Most fascinating for its descriptions of and discussions about elephants. I found the pulling together of the various threads of the murder plot quite contrived. Am nonetheless rating it four stars for the relationships -- human and elephant -- and for an easy writing style.

[theloopylibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was entranced until the ending. Leaving Time is an intriguing mystery interwoven with touching and fascinating stories about elephants. It features strong female characters who are intelligent and likable. The story was compelling, smart, funny, poignant and shrouded with mystery. The author built suspense and tension and included many surprises. But the twist at the end, while successful in that it was totally unexpected, made me feel cheated. Others may find the ending agreeable and even applaud it, but I was left mostly bereft by it. Nevertheless, it was a good read.

[threadnsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a thoroughly amazing book! An unlikely premise that works extremely well, bringing the reader into multiple worlds: elephant behavior, children with missing parents, a washed-up detective, and the world of the self-doubting psychic. Parts of the plot are in the "It could so too happen!" line, but really, what detective fiction is not? The research into elephant grief and elephant memory is extremely touching, as is the idea of herd culling and what the herd means to each elephant.

So basically you have several main characters, each of whom has their own chapter. Victor/Virgil is the police detective, Alice is the elephant researcher who speaks through her journals, Serenity is the psychic who has lost her spirit guides, and Jenna is the 13 year old girl who has lost her mother. What transpires is in its essence a girl's search for her mother who is lost to her, and she brings in a local psychic and the detective who was on the (botched) case to find her missing mother. We are given glimpses in the present and in the past, and each detail is neatly alluded to within each character's story.

The ending was not something I could have predicted, and I am so very, very glad that I didn't even peek at the end while I was reading it.

[comicgirl178 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

the ending saved this book from being a 1 star.

[charlotte1162 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this book! I have read a few of Jodi Picoult's books in the past but find that I have to wait ages before i'm emotionally ready to start another. They can be extremely intense!

'Leaving Time' was a little different to her other books, it was more mystical than any of her others and it did not feature a huge dramatic court case either. Instead it has been based on an Elephant sanctuary in Tennessee where zoo or circus elephants are free to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

I found this book really moving, the character development and progression of the story caught me and I finished the book in about a day - it was so hard not to want to read on and figure out what was happening! I really could not figure this mystery out!

Jodi Picoult! I want more books like this one!

[sallycrosiar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So much to learn about elephants!

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jenna is 13-years old and lives with her grandmother. Her parents ran an elephant sanctuary and on the night one of the keepers was found trampled (when Jenna was only 3-years old), her mother was also injured, then she disappeared. Jenna is now old enough to try, on her own, to find out what happened to her mother.

The story is told in alternating points of view, mostly from Jenna’s or her mother’s POV. Alice’s story starts with her elephant research on grief in Africa and there is so much interesting elephant research in these chapters. I loved learning about them. (There is an author’s note at the end that the elephant research is based on real research and real elephants, as I suspected.) The rest of the story was from Jenna’s POV, plus POVs of the two people she had helping her find her mother, a private investigator and a psychic. There is a big twist at the end!

[t1bnotown · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a book for book club that I read surprisingly fast (especially considering that I don't particularly like elephants). It was full of surprises that didn't come together or make sense until the end, which was sad and a little hard to make sense of when the story took its first surprising turn. There is some closure but it stays a little raw (of course, I've only just finished it). I think the title has a variety of possible meanings and I wonder if this will come up in the book club.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have two words for this book…Wait what?? I might need to repeat the two words because I said it a few times while reading this book. True to Jodi Picoult, there was a big shock at the end and also I kept thinking I knew what happened and then it would change. Then I would think I had it solved and it would change again. Then she would break my heart. Jodi is such a wonderful story teller and she did it again.

This is about Jenna who is looking for her Mom who has been missing for 10 years. Jenna hasn’t seen her since she was three when one of the caretakers at the elephant sanctuary is trampled and Jenna’s Mom Alice is injured and taken to the hospital. It’s also about Serenity, a psychic that Jenna approaches to help her find Alice. I remember Serenity from another book but can’t remember which one. I love that Jodi pulled her into another story. This is also about Virgil, one of the detectives who investigated what happened that night at the sanctuary and how the case has bothered him for 10 years. The story is told by different viewpoints throughout the book. Alice talks about the backstory and reveals to the reader what was happening leading up to that night. Virgil, Serenity and Jenna mainly reveal what is happening in the investigation. Jenna also has some memories about her first three years with her parents at the sanctuary.

I always recommend Jodi to anyone who wants to be sucked into a story and this one is no different. It will pull you in, shock you and make you sad. Read, read, read it. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. And if you think about it, read the little novella prequel Larger Than Life for this book. It adds more substance to Alice.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although I can't say I'm a big fan of the ending which, in fairly typical Picoult, is the easy way out, I really did enjoy the story. The adventuresome Alice and her research with elephants was fascinating to me. I looked up the resources, read the novella in the back, and although Alice's constant disregard for rules was sometimes a bit fatiguing, I love her passionate attachment.
The unfolding of the story really is clever: the little bits that come to light, a story unfolded in its bitterness - characters who are unable to love each other in a healthy way, bound by a common passion. There are some premises that I never really understood: why did Grace never seek a career as a teacher? why did Nevvie start to challenge Alice so much? how did Gideon not suspect Grace's secret? But suspended disbelief, including Serenity's role, are all part of a Picoult novel. This one didn't have the moral issues she usually seeks out, but the elephant backdrop amply made up for it.
An entertaining, quick read.

[gingermama-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A moving story of thirteen-year-old Jenna's search for her mother, an elephant researcher who disappeared under mysterious circumstances ten years earlier. Along the way, the reader learns about the plight of elephants, both captured and in the wild. Highly recommended.

[heatherlinc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I quite enjoyed this book, but I wouldn't rate it as one of Picoult's best. As usual the author used multiple narrators to tell the story, but by far my favourite was Alice as she researched and described elephant behaviour, their memories and how they grieve - just beautiful. The other characters I wasn't so keen on. I thought Jenna sounded, and acted, much older than 13 and while I quite liked Serenity and Virgil, I didn't really connect with them. As for the ending, it was a surprise, but I half expected a twist as Picoult is known for her unusual endings.

[olivermagnus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The main character of “Leaving Time” is Jenna, Alice and Thomas Metcalf's 13-year-old daughter, who at the novel’s beginning sets out to uncover what happened to her mother. Research scientist Alice Metcalf has devoted her professional life to investigating how elephants experience grief. After a tragedy occurs at the New Hampshire Elephant Sanctuary Alice disappears, and that’s the novel’s central mystery. Jenna cannot accept that someone who spent her career researching the behavior of grief, especially the special bond between mother and offspring, could possibly abandon her own three-year-old child with no logical explanation. Her father, currently living in a psychiatric facility, is no help. All Jenna has left of her mother is her research journals.

The author uses the narratives of four characters (Jenna; Alice; burned out cop, Virgil; and flamboyant, pink-haired Serenity, was once a TV celebrity psychic) to tell her story. At the heart of the book is the story of elephant behavior. I was more fascinated by the elephants than by the characters. I came away with a whole new philosophy regarding zoos and circuses.

The author manages to blend all of these diverse elements into a very compelling story, even though some of it is painful to read. I defy any reader to finish this book and forget what they learned about elephants. You'll never look at them again and not acknowledge how similar they are to us, especially when it comes to saying goodbye to those they love.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am fascinated by descriptions of elephant social behavior, and thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of this Jodi Picoult novel. I do not want to spoil the ending, so I will just say that it felt gimmicky. The basic theme of the incredible strength of the mother-child bond is well represented in the story. I found the plot to get a bit choppy at times, but otherwise was enjoyable.

[berly_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is about a child's search for her missing mother, who happened to be an expert on elephants. Seriously, you have to like elephants to like this book! I thought is was so interesting! It also helps if you can find it in yourself to like a grumpy detective, a precocious young heroine and a down-on-her-luck psychic. Oh, and the missing mom also has a voice. I loved this book! My only beefs are that I didn't enjoy one character's voice on the audio and there are several times where there is a long list, which I normally would have skipped in the written version, but it was so much fun that I listened to the last four hours at one go! Oh, and the ending floored me! One of my favorite Picoult's. If you like her stuff, or if you have never given her a try, don't miss this one!