‘Chris Flynn has written a brilliant, hilarious, and curiously moving novel, featuring one of the best narrators in literary history and – without a doubt – the single best narrator in natural history. Why has nobody ever written a novel from the point of view of a mammoth’s skeleton before? Because nobody was ever smart enough to do it. I simply love this story.’—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls, The Signature of All Things and Eat, Pray, Love
‘Mammoth is an extraordinary gambit of the storytelling imagination of Chris Flynn, and a new way of listening to all the narratives of what we have supplanted. Mammoth is playful and serious, encapsulating the macro-history of all life in the tale of one species. I don’t think anyone else has quite done that.’—Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark and Gossip from the Forest
‘Funny, warm and totally unique – I loved it.’—Favel Parrett, author of Past the Shallows, When the Night Comes and There Was Still Love
‘What an absolute joy of a book! If you’ve been feeling like the novel is an endangered species, then Mammoth is the book to bring it back to life for you. Mammoth shows anthropocentrism as the laughable delusion that it is, while still affirming the value and significance of story. This 13,000-year-old skeleton is my favourite character in years, and this hilarious and heartbreaking book is precisely what we hominids need right now. Read it immediately!’—Emily Bitto, author of The Strays
‘Mammoth is a little gem of a book and a joy to read. It defies categorisation – historical fiction, social commentary, humour (in spades) and a look at humanity’s impact on the planet through the eyes of a creature we once shared it with, all singing together so nicely.’—Meg Keneally, author of Fled and The Monsarrat Series
‘Long before the US–USSR “Missile gap” there was the US–Europe “Mammoth gap”, which President Thomas Jefferson set out to fix. Chris Flynn’s riveting mixture of fact and whimsy makes previously foreign names like Palaeospheniscus and Canis dirus memorable fellow travellers like Huck Finn and Ulysses. He gracefully leverages history to help us think about the future, big pictures and deep time.’—Dr George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and head of the Harvard Woolly Mammoth Revival team
‘If a fossil could speak, it would tell a thousand words. Chris Flynn’s Mammoth elegantly fuses fiction with fact and reminds us that fossils are not just objects of curiosity and fascination. They are the remains of once-living creatures who had emotions, who fought, loved, and survived…superb storytelling.’—Dr Gilbert Price, Senior Lecturer in Palaeontology, The University of Queensland
