In 1972, on the eve of America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, four American soldiers and a Thai agent were sent into the jungles of Laos to capture a mystical white elephant from the Ho Chi Minh Trail…
The White Elephant of Attapeu is a surreal adventure that combines the bloody chaos of films like Apocalypse Now with the breathing magic of Salman Rushdie and Haruki Murakami. A work of fiction adorned with fact, it is a quest for Southeast Asia’s sacred white elephant–both mystical and real–and one man’s search for the seeds of nirvana within the nightmare of his country’s meaningless war.
The White Elephant of Attapeu
circa 1948
(only known photograph)
EXCERPTS and EARLY DRAFTS:
BENNY’S DEAD (from the PROLOGUE)
“He lay there for a long time, blood bubbling from his mouth and wounds, eyes opening, closing, mute with horror and disbelief.”
ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL (from PART II)
“Amidst the human convoy, a single file of elephants trudged under the weight of ammunition crates and wheeled artillery. I watched, scared. Hard to believe we were all fighting the same war.”
CAPTURING THE WHITE ELEPHANT (from PART IV)
“The elephant had the eyes of a man: black pupils and brown irises ringed with white, moist with what could be mistaken for tears. Its third tusk was intricately carved in Pali—the language of the Buddha.”
LEAVING OZARK (from PART IV)
“One of the men looked a little above us, dropped his weapon, fell to his knees; then another and another and the clatter of falling rifles and everyone bowing before us. The Agent had emerged with the white elephant.”
CONG SAN, MOTHERFUCKER (from PART IV)
“Stripped to their waists, the youngest village girls wrung cloths soaked in warm buffalo milk onto the white elephant, their budding breasts glistening in the last light of the day.”
A WHITE ELEPHANT IN AMERICA (from PART V)
“In the fiercest of the flames he was seen wildly thrashing his trunk in the air, then with one loud cry fell and was seen no more.”
