To Follow Elephants

by Rick Hodges

As a young elephant learns the ways of the world from his herd's matriarch, 18 year old American Owen Dorner travels to Africa to meet his father for the first time. Plunged into the corrupt underworld of Colonel Mubego, a conniving prison warden and former revolutionary fighter, Owen seeks friendship amongst unlikely allies and finds meaning in the world of elephants. Biologist Wanjeri Mubego, the colonel's niece who is happier among the wildlife in her native Kenya than with people, helps Owen discover the truth about his father, Karl. A U.S. Army captain, Karl Dorner has lived in a dusty African prison cell since Owen was a small boy. Could Karl, accused of helping a local rebellion, be a hero, and not a traitor? Karl isn't telling. In a moving portrayal of elephant civilization parallel tales of intrigue and survival unfold, masterfully enriching our understanding of what it means to be human.

356 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2019

About the author

Rick Hodges is a professional writer by day and author by night. A voyage to East Africa, and the experience of seeing how the people there lived in tandem with wildlife, inspired his debut novel, To Follow Elephants, which won a Nautilus Book Awards silver medal. Rick’s other fictional works include award-winning short stories and a stage play, Three Generations of Imbeciles, which shines the light on the once common practice of involuntary sterilization of people with disabilities in the U.S. Rick lives with his wife and two daughters in Arlington, Virginia.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a review copy in turn for an honest review. To Follow Elephants is an enchanting coming-of-age story that switches between its main characters to build a breathtaking journey involving a young elephant, a teenager from the United States traveling to Kenya to look for his imprisoned father, and a young Kenyan woman studying wild elephants.

Rick Hodges' remarkable debut novel left me longing to visit the dry season of East Africa, where wild elephants, among other wildlife, freely migrate and are a part of the scenery and life of many people. It is a characteristic of eco-fiction that in fiction we include the nature around us, and Hodges succeeds. His soft prose-like chapters flip through the perspectives of a few individuals, but my favorite is the elephants' growing older and learning about First Grandmother.