The Last Animal

by Ramona Ausubel

A playful, witty, and resonant novel in which a single mother and her two teen daughters engage in a wild scientific experiment and discover themselves in the process, from the award-winning writer of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

Jane is a serious scientist on the cutting-edge team of a bold project looking to "de-extinct" the woolly mammoth. She's privileged to have been sent to Siberia to hunt for ancient DNA, but there's a catch: Jane's two "tagalong" teen daughters are there with her in the Arctic, and they're bored enough to cause trouble. Brilliant, fiery, sharp-tongued Eve is fifteen and willing to talk back to the male scientists in a way her mother is not. And sweet, thirteen-year-old Vera, who seems to absorb all the emotional burdens of her small family, just wants to be home in Berkeley, baking cakes and watching bad TV.

When Eve and Vera stumble upon a four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth that has been perfectly preserved, their discovery sets off a chain of events that pits Jane against her colleagues, and soon her status at the lab is tenuous at best. So what does a female scientist do when she's a passionate devotee of her field but her gender and life history hold her back? She goes rogue.

As Jane and her daughters ping-pong from the slopes of Siberia to a university in California, from the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, The Last Animal takes readers on an expansive, bighearted journey that explores the possibility and peril of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it's like to be a woman and a mother in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Book Club, Animals, Literary Fiction

278 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2023

About the author

Ramona Ausubel is the author of a new novel, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty (on sale 6/14/2016) as well as No One is Here Except All of Us, winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and Finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Her collection of stories, A Guide to Being Born, was a New York Times’ Notable Book. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review Daily, One Story, Ploughshares, The Oxford American and The Best American Fantasy. She is a faculty member of the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. I adored this novel! It appealed to me because my sister and I lost our father unexpectedly in early 2023, as did the sisters here, and because my dad was obsessed with creatures from the past. The woolly mammoth baby on the cover alone took me back to our frequent visits to The Museum of Natural History, only 4 blocks from my dad’s home. But I really didn’t know what to expect — I’d never read this author before. Well, I loved the writing:

“She thought about how interchangeable everyone was, little plastic figures that could snap in and out of lives, families. The professor was alive and her dad was dead for no fair or justifiable reason. One woman was a rich zookeeper and another a poor graduate student with two daughters she had to care for alone.”

And this:

“‘I do not love you,’ Eve said to their mother.
‘You do love me and I know it. This is exactly, exactly, what love feels like.’”

The daughters are in their early teens at the start, and the story is told in close third from the perspective of the youngest. I’ve read books where third person is SO close, it feels like first; but this is the polar opposite, so subtle it took me a while to realize it was from the youngest daughter’s POV at all (it may have in fact started from omniscience and eased its way in, I still can’t tell). What this did was give us a close feeling for the family dynamics between the three, as well as a clear feeling for the individuals. And one thing I liked best was how the youngest daughter saw herself come of age through her sister’s eyes rather than from her own, avoiding the self-referential. The sisters’ relationship was one of the strongest things about this book, and the differences between them are not to be described with usual tropes:

“Eve was fifteen, reshaping herself more each day; Vera, just shy of thirteen, was a stubborn straight line.”

But this is not just a story of a tight-knit threesome with no exterior: Jane, the mother, is a graduate student of paleobiology, continuing the path she began with her late husband. This brings the threesome to Siberia, Iceland, and Italy, each with its own adventure and a cast of rich characters. Scientific research, the effects of climate on the living and extinct, and the politics of foreign lands, of being female in a field ruled by men, and of the haves and have-nots, all make this more of a cerebral read with heart than a wholly interior one.

“This life of movement and travel and research had been his idea first and he had given it to Jane like a virus and Eve and Vera were born infected. They had grown up on the road, on the move, in countries all over the world….The summer Vera was nine and Eve eleven their family had been evacuated from Somalia when a civil war had broken out.”

And later, Vera feels guilty because “she wanted a life with a shallow swing to it, a life that did not peak and decline, peak and decline.”

My dad would have loved this book. He said I had a gift for choosing novels that spoke to him personally. In fact, our last actual conversation was when he called me from The Strand to get my book recommendation for his vacation from which he never returned. I often think of things he’d still enjoy, and this novel is one of them. Instead, I pass it along to you…

[Teres · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel explores the ethical implications of bioengineering the resurrection of an extinct animal species — namely, the woolly mammoth on the book’s cover.

But it’s also a beautiful mother-daughter love story about a family grieving the sudden extinction of their husband/dad who sadly they cannot resurrect.

A thought-provoking and entertaining read.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ugh- this is so close to being so good and it just misses the mark. I don’t know why- I wasn’t really moved by dead dad at all (and at the end where the whole ending is kinda about him I really did not care). It was all about him and not enough about him to make it good or relatable. The story keeps you at a distance similar to the way Our Wives Under the Sea felt to me.

I liked the bits with Pearl though that was so hard to read.

The blurb kinda made this sound like this would be some thriller-esque globe trotting adventure but it’s not really. We do get to see Iceland and Italy and Siberia, but not necessarily in ways that felt like we were experiencing it? There are no thrills, the novel is very quiet.

I don’t know. I did enjoy the writing for the most part so it’s hard for me to pinpoint what it was.

This book also goes on my “I Got Chapter Issues” shelf because it only has 9 chapters and they are like 30+ pages long and that is too long.

Sorry. 🙃

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you could cross Anne Tyler’s novels with strands of DNA from Michael Crichton’s thrillers, you might produce this new book by Ramona Ausubel. From a taxonomic point of view, “The Last Animal” is a sweet, poignant descendant of “Jurassic Park.”

Such a strange literary creation sounds unlikely to survive in the wild, but in Ausubel’s laboratory, it springs alive to explore questions that stump scientists and families, problems of the head and of the heart.

The novel opens in Siberia, which is a dark and cold place, but no darker or colder than Jane and her teenage daughters, Eve and Vera, have been feeling lately. A year ago, Jane’s husband, a successful paleoanthropologist, died in a car accident in Italy. Before that tragedy ended his work, the family had traipsed around the world searching for Neanderthal bones in French caves and measuring ancient eye sockets in Kenya. Determined to carry on her own research in paleobiology and to keep her daughters close, Jane has brought the girls along on a field expedition to the frozen edge of the planet.

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth reviewing since it's one of the weakest attempts a storytelling I've seen!

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Natasha
Soudek
…..9 hours and 45 minutes

I enjoyed this charming/unique slim-novel ….
……a paleontological exploration of a deceased woolly mammoth, a grieving family, and wild adventures.

Jane is a graduate student in palebiology. Also a widow. She brings her two young daughters Vera (15) and Eve (13) with her on an Arctic dig.
The year before the girls father/wife’s husband (paleontologist) died in a car crash in Italy.
We know the little family is still grieving …. but they want to carry on work that the father never got to finish—finding Neanderthal bones.
The book begins in Siberia. They also travel to Russia, Iceland, and Italy. (They are from Berkeley, California) …

The adventures and obstacles are fascinating— with themes addressing climate change, racism, sexism, and nature ……
The girls find a woolly mammoth. The different scientists on the expedition named it Aleksei. (of course they wanted to take credit from the girls) ….. but the girls and Jane persevered…
They had bigger fish to fry than to worry about men’s egos - and their need for credit ….
The loss and grief they were living with taught them deeper wisdom about what really matters and what doesn’t. They sisters closeness was heart-warming … and the overall journey-discovery-experience for Jane, Vera, and Eve was moving.

The sweet aura of “The Last Animal” is lovely, creative, with intimate prose….
making this a totally endearing and entertaining memorable read.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I spent a good deal of time with this (audio)book but I was on the fence with it for most of that time. There are just so many inconsistencies in voice, especially in its purported feminism (as just one example: why does a woman scientist who rages against the male dominance of her field react so non-feministly when she discovers her 17-year-old daughter is having sex?)

The premise is strong, there are some lovely sentences, and there are some stunning and beautiful descriptive passages. Two in particular stood out for me, one around the climate angst of today's teens and another about grief. These kept me going hoping for more.

Ultimately, I would have bought in to The Last Animal's fantastical central plot point -- the bio-engineered resurrection of a wooly mammoth -- and I might have even overcome its reliance on far too many coincidences, the tendency to put huge expositions to explain the science into the daughters' mouths as dialogue (no, just no), and the narrator's just-competent performance, but the novel's overall execution just wasn't there for me.

What finally did me in was a copy-editing flaw, the proverbial last straw. The youngest daughter is baking a cake (don't even get me started on the coincidences leading up to this point) and claims not to need a timer because "she'll know it's done by its smell." A page or two later, the timer goes off.

And with that, so did this audiobook.

Arrrrgghh.

[Marseydoats · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sad and stupid is the only way I can describe this. Jane (the mom) creates a woolly mammoth baby with no thought of the consequences. She has absolutely no idea how to care for the poor thing after it's born and the mother elephant rejects it. She's supposed to be a scientist, she had 2 years while the elephant was pregnant to research it.
All the while, her teenage daughters are running wild with no supervision, and the oldest gets pregnant.
The only thing I got from this book is that it's still not a good idea to fool with Mother Nature.
I was hoping this would be a happy, inspirational book. The cover is great, and I love baby elephants, but this is just disappointing.

[Brenda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wooly mammoths are a favorite creature so I was excited to read this book. I struggled with the writing style so much that I couldn't continue with the story. I also struggled to care about the characters.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Okay, this was interesting. It's a literary novel with technothriller trappings. Let's be clear, this is no thriller, but the backdrop was interesting. It's the story of a scientist who is a 38-year-old, widowed, graduate student and mother of two daughters. It's also the story of their coming of age in extraordinary circumstances. This small family is frequently globe trotting for the mother's field work, and is perpetually broke. The more senior male scientists with whom she works constantly belittle her and take credit for her work. Even her children's work! Because as the novel opens, the girls have made an extraordinary discovery, a completely intact, frozen baby mammoth. It is exactly what the team was seeking.

The book that frequently came to mind as I was reading this was Bonnie Garmus's sleeper hit, Lessons in Chemistry. Because these two characters have quite a few things in common (and just as many differences), but this contemporary take on being a woman in science shows that things haven't gotten all that much easier in the ensuing decades.

But, again, this is all set dressing. Because when you dig down past the fascinating science and the exotic settings, this is a family drama at its heart, and the book never loses focus on what's really important. The three women that make up the unequal sides of this family triangle are well-realized and believable in their love and conflict. I liked everything about this book!

[Holly R W · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its heart, the novel is about a mom (Jane) and her two teenage daughters (Vera and Eve). A year before the story begins, the dad in the family died in a car accident. Grief is part of the tale. Vera and Eve dream about having a typical teen's life: going to the mall with friends, flirting with boys, and being yelled at by their mom for not doing their homework. Instead, when the book opens, they find themselves in Siberia on a scientific expedition with their mom and her coworkers. They have had an unusual upbringing. Born to parents who are scientists, the girls have traveled the world with them, due to their work.

During the trip to Siberia, Vera and Eve find a perfectly frozen baby woolly mammoth that dovetails with the scientific research of the team. The scientists are interested in gene editing and want to utilize cells from the animal to create embryos back in the lab. The girls would like their mom to get credit for the find, since as the only female scientist, she is often treated as a lackey.

So begins a fantastical (sometimes madcap) tale that often calls for the reader to suspend belief. I enjoyed the author's creativity and her writing style. Here is a sample. Ausubel is writing here about when the sisters travel to Iceland with their mom.

"Summer in Iceland was even less summery than it was in Berkeley (California). Vera bought an expensive heavy wool sweater to wear under her down coat because she was always cold, always cold and always trailing behind Eve who had met a boy. Eve was the first to fall in love as Eve was the first to do everything."

I found the book to be playful and the sisters to be delightful. The tale is told from younger sister Vera's point of view.


Here is an author interview with Ramona Ausubel. https://www.google.com/search?client=...

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this was weird. I dnf’d at 2/3 of the way through because I couldn’t take it anymore.

What in the world.

- a scientist mother who doesn’t seem to know very much, steals scientific samples and then has the gall to be offended when the male scientists don’t take her seriously.
- two teenage daughters who talk like no teen I’ve ever met and I’m the parent of teenagers and I’ve taught high schoolers for years. They honestly sound smarter than the mother.
- an oldest teen daughter who artificially inseminates herself with iceman sperm while drunk on the bathroom floor AND ACTUALLY GETS PREGNANT. I didn’t read to the end to know if it was the iceman sperm or the sperm of the 26 yr old man she was sleeping with.
- a scene where the spaced out mother actually whips out her breast to feed a baby mammoth who won’t take a bottle.

And I’m done. There’s probably more weirdness to come but that’s quite enough for me.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. Such an interesting premise, boring execution. Did not finish.

[Haidi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insufferable

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first page, which is really only half a page, sets up the story beautifully. We know the characters, and we know why they are feeling rough around the edges. And Paleobiologist? What a fascinating expertise to choose for a character.

I have been a big Ausbel fan since Awayland, which taught me that life is absurd, so maybe accept that and quit stomping through your life being mad about it. In the beginning of this story, the three main characters: mom and two teen daughters, are, due to a tragedy, locked into a constant state of sadness and anger. They haven't found a way forward through the fog of despair. Not yet.

The mother, Jane, though a highly qualified graduate student, is delegated to note-taking by her fellow scientists on a research trip.I can appreciate the author's emphasis on persistent sexism in academia, because that is absolutely true way too often. 

The two daughters are sharp, aware, and wickedly funny. You get the distinct impression that they make the best of every reasearch field location, even if it would have been preferable to stay at home. 

The major theme in this book is loss: the disappearance of the megafauna long ago, the loss of someone loved, and the looming losses via the Climate Crisis. How does one deal with past, present, and future loss all at once? Is there even a healthy coping strategy for all of that?

And, to add to this, is another kind of loss: the kind Rosalind Franklin experienced: having your ideas and discoveries stolen, and getting no credit for them. This has never stopped happening, just as double standards are still as predictable as the tides. Women in all academic fields are often judged on their appearance, while no one cares what a male scientist or professor looks like. Men are never questioned for leaving their kids at home, or going on long trips without seeing their families. Rarely has a man ever asked a male subordinate to get him a cup of coffee. No wonder so many women are angry.

With rage, as with grief, you have a few choices: swallow it, ignore it, or use it like flint, and let it sharpen you.

And once you decide you want to have sharper edges, it's not far off to want to do something extraordinary, for yourself, to quit being the always diplomatic, mild, invisible, people-pleaser. 

From this state of mind, our adventure begins in earnest. Mother and daughters have lost cohesion and it will take outside pressure to regain their unity. It is only when they lean into their shared trust that true healing can begin for any of them. But first, they must embark on a singularly bizarre journey, where it seems unwise to trust anyone, and it's not paranoia if everyone seems creepy and suspicious, is it?

This was a truly enjoyable read, though I may skip castles in the Italian countryside for the forseeable future.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

An original and entertaining premise in which a widowed biologist and her two teenage daughters, still grieving the sudden, unexpected death of their husband and father only about a year earlier, are on a scientific expedition in Arctic Siberia when the two bored teens stumble across a perfectly preserved baby woolly mammoth emerging from the melting permafrost. What happens next takes the three on a wild ride as the hugely resentful woman, perpetually overlooked and sidelined by her male colleagues even as they steal and take credit for her ideas, swipes some gene-spliced genetic material from the mammoth and colludes with another woman to implant it in a modern elephant in an attempt to create a living hybrid mammoth.

This book is an ingenious hybrid itself, incorporating semi-plausible elements of scientific frontiers, an adventure story (set in such places as Siberia, Iceland, and an Italian castle with its own zoo), with an all-too-real story of female rage at male condescension, but most especially the utterly plausible, fraught but tender relationship of the grieving trio of mother and daughters.

Highly enjoyable, by turns funny and moving. I loved all three of the women: the flawed scientist mom, the rebellious older daughter and the obedient, anxious younger girl.

[Manisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook.

Okay. The premise was VERY interesting. However, some parts of the book made me realize that I needed to put my brain away and lock it in a metal box to enjoy the story. For example, you STEAL embryo eggs??? And the excuse was that they die all the time, and nobody notices?? I used to work in a research lab and find it hard to believe that EMBRYOS weren't documented when they were lost. Also, logistically, how do you even leave the lab with a cooler of embryos? Second, YOU INSEMINATED YOURSELF WITH ICEMAN SPERM???? I'm not going to even begin with how dumb of a storyline that was. Lastly, are you OUT OF YOUR MIND by releasing a wholly mammoth into the wild??? I'm no animal scientist, but that CANNOT be smart. I'm not going to continue because I don't wanna spend any longer on this book tbh

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Ausubel’s offbeat third novel, a widowed scientist and her two daughters embark on a rogue plan to make history by resurrecting the woolly mammoth. There is a quirky combination of cosmic and domestic concerns here. A winsome sister duo is at the heart of the unusual and timely story, with priority given to the points of view of teenagers Eve and Vera, whose banter is a highlight. Ausubel has wisely chosen not to dwell on the scientific details of de-extinction, yet that means that this becomes more like speculative fiction or a fairy tale. Ironically, the fabulist-leaning novel is best when most realist, documenting struggles with bereavement, sexism and parenting teens. (More of a 3.5, really.)

See my full review at BookBrowse. (See also my related article on de-extinction projects and specifically the auroch.)

[Bobby's Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 STARS | BEAUTIFUL and a REFRESHINGLY ORIGINAL novel which touches your heart from every page! Ausubel’s new novel (which releases April 18, 2023) will have readers on a journey of motherhood, existence, forgiveness, and where you truly belong in life. I loved this book! Teenage sisters Eve and Vera are having their summer vacation in the Arctic, as they tag along with their mother’s scientific expedition. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting. The discovery sets off a surprising chain of events, leading mother and daughters to an exotic animal farm in Italy, resulting in the birth of a creature that could change the world and the family themselves. A must read! Thank you to the Riverhead Books team for sending me a copy to review!

[Lisa Lobitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know. Weird. Required way too much suspension of disbelief that I was unwilling to give.
2.5

[Lormac · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did nothing for me. Jane is a widowed 35 year old graduate student with two children when the book starts. For some reason, which is only sketchily explained, she takes them on a genetic research field trip to Siberia. Ausubel started to lose me there - since when do universities have the funds to pay for the children of graduate students to go on expeditions? Well, I suppose this had to occur so the kids could discover (and lug back to camp!!??!!) a frozen baby woolly mammoth to get the story wheels spinning - ugh.

I tried considering this story as a fairy tale - after all, Ausubel gives the readers princes in Iceland, wicked witches in Italy, balls with silken dresses and jewels, alpine fields out of Heidi, and story book cottages in the woods - but this just did not work for me. Overall, I just found myself sighing at the ridiculous goings-on.

[Ruby Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly enjoyable and beautifully written, The Last Animal begins with a wildly imaginative premise involving a and sees it through to the end. I was enchanted by both the plot and the writing. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Lauren]

My Bookpage review will be out in a few months but if you like novels about genetic mutation and sisterly devotion, this is your jam. Charming, witty, thought provoking.

Bookpage review here: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/the-...

[Karla Rizzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so well written and so different in story and themes, I don't know why it just never grabbed me and felt really slow despite being a short book.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Animal is a captivating adventure that blends family dynamics with scientific curiosity. It's the story of a single mom and her teenage daughters, Eve and Vera, who get to work on a mammoth project. At first, the girls are not on board, but they reluctantly embark on an unexpected journey to the Arctic, turning their mundane summer into an exhilarating experience. The discovery of a perfectly preserved mammoth sets the stage for an unpredictable narrative that spans Siberia, Iceland, and an exotic animal farm in Italy.

It's not hard to see why this book is getting so much hype. There's a lot packed into the novel, which dives into some involved questions, like if you love something enough, can you save it? The author also explores the marvels of scientific discovery and challenges the male-dominated field, making it an excellent read for girls. She raises ethical questions about cloning, asking what will happen in the future. Will it be possible to revive extinct animals? The Last Animal is a delightful read for anyone seeking an adventurous journey filled with unexpected twists, scientific intrigue, and the timeless bond of family. It is highly recommended for teenagers and adults alike!

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...

[Katelyn Younglove · Rating 1 out of 5]

For such an expensive book, I wanted this to be better. As a biology student, I wanted this to be better. It had promise, but just failed to deliver. At a certain point, I had to force myself to pick it up and read it. I guess I’m glad I finished it, but it was kind of a waste of time. The book didn’t get interesting until I was 80% done. I couldn’t get behind the writing style. The author tried so hard to make everything of out the character’s mouths sound witty, which made them kind of insufferable. People don’t talk like that. Some bits were just weird too, why on two occasions are we licking rocks. The plot wasn’t bad at all but I just could not get behind the writing. Also didn’t love that the chapters were easily 20-30 pages, which also made it hard to read because there weren’t nice stopping points.

[Jennifer Mangler · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a weird book. I really liked the beginning of the book quite a lot. There was so much potential in the storylines of the climate crisis, the frustration Jane (and her daughters) felt at the obvious sexism she consistently had to deal with, and the ethical dilemma of resurrecting the wooly mammoth. And then it took a hard turn into weirdness. I don't understand why all the creepiness was thrown into the story once they got to Helen & George's estate. It so wasn't necessary! All the other promising storylines got tossed out the window. There was enough drama inherent in the story without all that strangeness. And the stuff about Otzi was so over-the-top weird and gross.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The characters were so insufferable it clouded the entire book in a layer of loathing, pretentiousness, and a complete and utter lack of redemption. The mom was written like she was continuously high or severely lacking in her reasoning skills, the daughters were the most idiotic, “I think I’m better than you”, little brats, and the plot was barely holding the book together

[Devin Maloney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Umm I found this unbelievably weird. There were just way too many parts that I couldn’t get over particularly the daughter with the caveman sperm????

[Shelley Marsh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel I have more of a tendency to write a review of a book I didn't like than of one I did.
So, here goes . . . I was excited to read it because the part about the mammoth being reintroduced into modern times was fun and had lots of possibilities. It seems wrong to complain that everything in the book was so implausible then, right? I expected it to be science fiction-y. But I've never heard teenagers talk that way. Maybe I haven't been hanging around the right circles? Stuff was shared about the past like how when the Mom found out she was pregnant, she went outside and licked the cobblestones? Later the youngest daughter puts a rock in her mouth at the site of her dad's fatal car crash. It's a family thing? During a huge crisis, the eldest daughter puts on somebody else's evening gown and runs around wearing it until the end of the book. Not to mention, to spite her Mom, she impregnates herself (she thinks) with thousands of years old iceman sperm. The baby turns out to be the progeny of the cute guy from Iceland but you never know? In the end, the family sets the baby mammoth free in the mountains of Italy (I think) and it just toddles off the way babies do I guess to be eaten tomorrow by whatever apex predator lives in the mountains of Italy. Themes to be had here? Do whatever you want. Rich people are often miserable. The planet is doomed. People can be really whiney.