The Age of Elephants

The filaments that enmeshed them in Durbar Court were the stories they wove. Leila, who never contributed any herself, claimed that without them the resident behemoths would fall permanently asleep. It was a soporific summer. An extraordinary summer, as if the mechanism of the seasons had broken down, stranding them in a time locked vault of cloudless blue. The garden parasols were giant sundials around which carousels of shadow clocked the intervals from breakfast to supper. Only the bearers punctuated the hours, padding out to them with trays of lemon cordial and iced tea. This second novel by Peter Moss, whose first, The Singing Tree, was described by the New York Times as 'a little gem', draws heavily upon his memories of an Indian childhood to populate a recreated cameo of imperial India, set on the south coast of England. Here relics of the British Raj, living out their sequestered lives immersed in nostalgia for a long lost world, lead a casual visitor to confront memories he has desperately endeavoured to erase.