Picoult, Jodi. Leaving Time, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2015, paperback, pages 483.

Rating: 3/10

A convention dictates that scrupulous reviewers must warn their readers about “spoilers” in the review. Leaving time by Jodi Picoult is a scientific treatise on Elephants. Though debatable whether a “spoiler” warning is essential for a science textbook, it’s given here just in case you are an elephant fan, and would like to expand your knowledge of that pet subject.

Picoult, a prolific writer, has made her elephant dissertation a little spicy by adding a human fairytale to it. The fairytale starts with Jenna, a 13-year old girl making it her mission to find Alice, her mother, who has been missing for ten years. Thomas, the girl’s father is a madman in asylum, so he can’t help. Jenna contacts Serenity, a psychic, who has no psychic abilities any longer but manages to find Alice’s ten year old wallet on a tree and necklace in the ground. These things can happen in a fairytale.

After that the book has 100 pages describing  how elephants grieve and mourn the loss of stillborn calves. We understand how it takes an entire herd to raise an elephant calf. Readers are exposed to the word “allomothering”.

Jenna then recruits Virgil, a detective who is no longer a detective. He is unsure about his own name. He is a complete mess, disorganized, and as a result manages to find first a nail and later a tooth, both intact from ten years ago. These things do happen in a fairytale. Meanwhile, Serenity explains the difference between ghosts and spirits.

The next 100 pages tell us how elephants in zoos and circuses are unfortunate, how those in the sanctuaries are lucky. We learn about African and Asian elephants in America. We move from Botswana to New Hampshire.

By now the four key characters, Jenna, Alice, Serenity, and Virgil are all rendering lengthy monologues one after the other. Though everyone else thinks Alice is dead, the reader knows Alice is alive because she is telling her life story in first person.

The next 100 pages talk about the phenomenal elephant memory. They also contain a scientific discussion on whether selective parts of that memory can be erased permanently using drugs, and whether it’s possible to do the same for humans.

Meanwhile from the subplot, the fairytale, we know that Alice ceased to love her husband, Thomas, because he lost his marbles. She begins an affair with Gideon, a sanctuary employee. Because it is a fable, the 21^st century scientist Alice is unaware of contraception; pregnancy surprises her both times. Second time she is pregnant from Gideon. Following the affair, Gideon’s wife Grace commits suicide. Grace’s mother Nevvie is trampled over by an elephant, mutilated beyond recognition. Now comes the fairytale part. Ten years later, Jenna travels a thousand miles hiding in a bus and trucks and meets Gideon. Serenity and Virgil fly and in a dilapidated house meet Nevvie who is blind but alive, and waiting for Grace to come home. Grace may or may not be alive.  

Over the next 100 pages we read about Maura, a mother elephant, who was present at the crime scene, and probably trampled on one body and buried another. We wait for a first person narrative from Maura, but it doesn’t happen.

Now suddenly, the fairytale comes alive. We learn the protagonist,  who was talking to us all this time, died ten years ago. In this ‘whosalive’ mystery, we now realize a dead daughter was looking for a dead mother. But wait, the mother turns out to be alive. So, in fact, a dead daughter was looking for a living mother, with the help of a detective who is apparently long dead, but a psychic who for some reason is alive. Alice had an affair with Gideon, so his wife Grace committed suicide, so her mother Nevvie took revenge by killing Jenna, so Alice killed Nevvie in a dogfight. A very logical revenge cycle. Remember at the end of the book only Alice and Serenity are alive, everyone else is dead. The book is full of dead characters. Instead of the alive Jenna meeting her mother, dead or alive, the fairytale ends with the alive Alice meeting her dead daughter Jenna in a mirror. They express surprise about the mutual misunderstanding as to their living status.

The scientific thesis ends by reinforcing that poaching for ivory is evil, and that elephants may be more evolved than humans.

“Leaving time”, the enigmatic title, may refer to the author’s career plan. It’s also possible that the book was not written by Jodi Picoult at all – it might have been ghostwritten.

*****