Once Upon an Elephant

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Once Upon an Elephant is at once a fairy tale, a whodunit, a wacky Hindu
religious tract (is that being offensive?), and a kind of “the gods
must be crazy” romp of merriment.

In the pantheon of the Hindu gods, Ganesha is the Lord of Obstacles,
both of placing and removing them. He is also the elephant god, a human
body with the head of an elephant. How he got that way (and how he got
that way in Calgary, for goodness’ sake!) is the subject of this
delicious story by Alberta poet Ashok Mathur. Peopled with gay
detectives, a judge deep into his dotage, various incarnations of Hindu
deities, and an unpretentious university professor who finds himself in
the middle of these unlikely events, this is a page-turner for sure, and
one that must be added to your public library collection if the gods are
to be appeased.