Shadows and Elephants

by Edward Hower

"Edward Hower is a writer of talent and substance."-William Kennedy Spiritualism, the conviction that the dead are able to contact living people from an afterworld, became popular in America after the Civil War, when grief-stricken survivors tried to contact the fallen. In an era of breakaway churches and rampant industrialization, ordinary people sought desperately to prove to themselves they possessed immortal souls. Spiritualism was also one of the few venues that offered women a chance to lead. One such woman was Madame Helena Blavatsky, a Russian-born mystic who used her considerable intellectual gifts to rise to the top of the spiritualist hierarchy. Together with her partner, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a popular journalist and Civil War hero, she attracted many of the leading celebrities of the age, such as Thomas Edison and Abner Doubleday in New York; and in London, W.B. Yeats, and the young Mohandas P. Gandhi. But, hounded by the press and subjected to scathing ridicule, they moved from the parlors of Gilded Age New York to the slums of Bombay then again to Ceylon, attempting to spread their ideas. Loosely based on the lives of Blavatsky and Olcott, Shadows and Elephants follows two unforgettable fictional creations, passionate in their friendship, courageous in the face of public humiliation, and devoted absolutely to contacting the souls of the deceased in order to learn from their wisdom. Shadows and Elephants is a sensuous historical novel with totally contemporary resonance, for indeed, spiritualism has survived for over 130 years; reshaped in today's eclectic New Age beliefs. Edward Hower is the author of four previous novels. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian ; his reviews in the nation's most prestigious book pages. He has been awarded numerous creative writing grants. He lives in Ithaca, NY.

Genres: Fiction

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Edward Hower has published nine novels, two books of stories, and, most recently, What Can You Do: Personal Essays and Travel Writing. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, Smithsonian, American Scholar, and elsewhere. He has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Fulbright grants to India.

After Hower graduated from Cornell University in 1963, he lived in East Africa for three years, where he taught high school, sang in local nightclubs, and wrote his first novel, The New Life Hotel. Later, he earned a masters degree in Anthropology from the University of California, doing field work among Los Angeles street gangs.

More recently, he has taught at several American universities and has given writing workshops in Tobago, Greece, Sri Lanka, Britain, Nepal, and Key West, Florida. Many of these classes he has co-taught with his wife, the novelist the late Alison Lurie. He has lived in Ithaca, New York since 1975, and has two grown children, Dan and Lana.

abridged bio from Mr Hower's web page

Reviews

[GoldenjoyBazyll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seers... real ability or a sham? This is the plight of Ben and Madame Helena as they find their way to being two of the most famous mystical figures ( based on the lives of Blavatsky and Olcott) from New York to India in this fiction/ occult novel.

While this book took me FOREVER to read I really did enjoy it. For me it was one of those reads I had to be in the right frame of mind for.

Definately would recommend it!

[Christina Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walk with Ben and Madame Irena as they cross continents promoting "Alexandrianism" and enjoy discovering the "Masters" as you discern what is real and what is not.

Based on the life of Madame Blatsavsky (sp?).