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White Elephant: A Novel
White Elephant: A Novel
White Elephant: A Novel
Audiobook9 hours

White Elephant: A Novel

Written by Julie Langsdorf

Narrated by Allyson Ryan

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

A turf war between neighbors leads to a small-town crisis in this hilarious, addictive, and sharply observant debut novel.

The White Elephant looms large over the quaint suburban town of Willard Park: a gaudy, newly constructed behemoth of a home, it soars over the neighborhood, dwarfing the houses that surround it. When owner Nick Cox cuts down Allison and Ted Millers’ precious red maple—in an effort to make his unsightly property more appealing to buyers—their once serene town becomes a battleground.

While tensions between Ted and Nick escalate, other dysfunctions abound: Allison finds herself compulsively drawn to the man who is threatening to upend her quietly organized life. A lawyer with a pot habit and a serious midlife crisis skirts his responsibilities. And in a quest for popularity, a teenage girl gets caught up in a not-so-harmless prank. Newcomers and longtime residents alike begin to clash in conflicting pursuits of the American Dream, with trees mysteriously uprooted, fires set, fingers pointed, and lines drawn.

White Elephant is an uproarious, tangled-web tale of neighbor hating neighbor (and neighbor falling head over heels for neighbor). Soon, peaceful Willard Park becomes a tinderbox with nowhere to go but up in flames.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateMar 26, 2019
ISBN9780062898241
Author

Julie Langsdorf

Julie Langsdorf’s short stories and essays have appeared in Lit Hub and Electric Literature among other publications. She has two children and lives in Washington, D.C.

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Reviews for White Elephant

Rating: 3.516129080645161 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

31 ratings6 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As some other reviewers said, this is a suburban ennui novel. I'm not opposed to that. The problem here is that there's nothing new or interesting about it. What else is there to be said, really, about white middle class suburbia? There isn't enough to the characters and their relationships to make it worthwhile.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is astonishing: I've read two debut novels in a row that I think are worth five stars. What a week!

    I can't quite write a coherent review of this one yet--I just finished it about an hour ago. But if you like a good old-fashioned satirical novel that simply tells a story about a bunch of people going about their normal, everyday lives and changing in small ways, you might like this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Enjoyable read with funny quirky characters and different situations.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "It's so Norman Rockwell," Suzanne said. (...)Grant said, "Yeah. A little eerie. Remember the Twilight Zone episode..." from White Elephant by Julie LangsdorfWillard Park is a close community filled with early 20th c Sears kit houses and family-friendly ambiance. In the center of town, there is a band shell decked out in bunting. Halloween is an all-day affair (with an implicit ban on sugar) ending with singing 1960s era folk songs around a bonfire. You know, seasonal songs like If I Had A Hammer. Oh--and everyone has their own mug at the coffee shop.It reminds me of places I have lived in, like the small city that banned fast food chains. Or the even smaller town that turned a grass-roots Halloween prank of rolling pumpkins down the hill into town into a family event, lining the street with bales of hay to prevent the pumpkins from crashing into storefronts. I remember being laughed at for my Big City paranoia, locking my house when I left and my car when shopping in town. Small towns always have a secret agreement of values to be ferreted out or learned through mistakes.In Julie Langsdorf's novel White Elephant, Willard Park is filled with residents with roots, like Ted and his twin brother Terrance. Newcomers are expected to fit in and hold the same values."She and the other neighbors might have forgiven them the sin of bad taste with time, but as the months wore on, the Coxes continued to disobey the unspoken rules of the neighborhood. They didn't compost. They had pesticides sprayed on their grass. They didn't join the Friends of the Willard Park Children's Library. They didn't even recycle.The Coxes were like foreign visitors who had not read up on the local customs." from White ElephantSince I had an ARC of White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf I made pencil notations in the book instead of on a slip of paper or on post-it notes. I soon realized I was underlining and circling and notating to the point of absurdity. There were so many wickedly funny lines summarizing up scenes! So many characters' inner thoughts leading up to hilarious insights! The way some people randomly open the Bible while looking for guidance, I can randomly open White Elephants looking for a laugh.Suzanne was at the top: serious and smart. Brilliant maybe. No sense of humor. Did she have a humor disability? Why wasn't that a thing?Other lines struck home--too close for my comfort. Was Langsdorf thinking about how I felt thirty years ago--or her character Allison--when she wrote,"It was stressful being a mother these days, increasingly so. Mothers who chose to stay at home were so well educated--and so ashamed about not earning a paycheck--that they put every ounce of their abundant energy into mothering, determined to get results." from White ElephantTed and Allison Miller and Nick and Kaye Cox were on a collision course with destiny, impelled by their personal fatal flaws.It all started when Nick and Kaye Cox and daughter Lindy moved next door to Ted and Allison and daughter Jillian. Ted grew up in Willard Park. Allison is photographing the town with hopes of making a book. They love the vintage time-loop 'Twilight Zone' vibe.Nick has a vision of turning the Sears houses into upscale palaces. As a Washington D.C. suburb, it would make the community a magnet--and make his fortune. He turned his charming house into a towering abode filled with the biggest and best money can afford. He started a new showcase home to sell before running out of money, the house nicknamed the White Elephant.My little city is proud of our Sears kit homes and a page is included on the city web page. But as house prices have risen, young people can no longer afford our neighboring cities and our houses are in high demand. Many have been torn down and replaced with huge 'farmhouse' style buildings that take up most of the lot, towering over the neighboring houses. Not only is Nick changing the town Ted loves, but he is also cutting down trees, including one Ted planted when Jillian was born! Ted becomes obsessed, patrolling the neighborhood, seeking out fallen trees and other evidence of Nick's crusade to destroy Willard Park. He can't relax and it's affecting his ability to give his wife the physical attention she desperately craves. Leaving Allison with an obsession of her own: their neighbor, Nick Cox.Meanwhile, Kaye Cox is lonely for her old friends; she always made friends so easily, but she feels shut out and shunned in this closed town. Lindy Cox takes up with the studious Jillian Miller, intent on making her 'cool.' Lindy gets everything she wants and lacks self-discipline and self-control. Jillian allows herself to be taken up into Lindy's world of unlimited consumerism and pleasure and rules-breaking.And then there is Ted's loveable twin brother, Terrance, who lives in a group home.A new couple comes into town, Grant and Suzanne with son Adam. Grant is carefree and fun (especially when high) and unreliable, while his wife is a perfectionist intent on keeping his nose to the grindstone. They were forced to move into a small bungalow after Grant lost his job at the law firm.Needless to say, their marriage has been under stress. Now, Suzanne has an unplanned pregnancy. They become caught in the middle of the battle between nostalgia and progress.The novel works up to an exciting climax and unexpected reveal and finally, a happy resolution.I loved Langsdorf's comedy and I loved her insights into human nature and the values battles in a small town that reflect the larger national tensions. Do we look to the past or the future for the betterment of our society? How can rampant consumerism and environmental protectionism exist side by side? Can we find or build community in a mobile world were the average person moves a dozen times in their life? How do women balance the need for personal achievement and motherhood? I received an ARC from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway. My review is fair and unbiased.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Many thanks to the Goodreads Giveaways program for an advance readers copy of this book. ‘White Elephant’ casts a bright, gimlet eye on a modern suburban neighborhood of Washington D.C. The story centers around three families and the narrative about this cast of characters is both funny and sad by turns. Author Julie Langsdorf understands and describes both the closeness and also an underlying loneliness that may exist for people in small communities, in families, and in marriages. Her portrayals of three married couples are well-done but I enjoyed her periphery characters even more -- there is Lucy, a colorful and savvy café owner who makes the best muffins ever, there is Terrance, a wise, disabled brother of one of the husbands, and there are some smart adolescent characters who are going through some struggles of their own. Nicely done, especially for readers who enjoy contemporary family novels.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Perfect for fans of Tom Perrotta and Jonathan Tropper, White Elephant is an impressive debut that I binge-read in a couple of days. These neighbors are so dysfunctional, and yet, so relatable. I wanted to simultaneously hug and yell at every character in this book.Charming 100-year-old Sears homes, a children’s library, the local coffee shop where everyone has their own mug . . . an idyllic bedroom community for upper-middle class families. All is perfect in Willard Park, until newcomer architect Nick Cox moves in and begins building massive mansions that loom over the cozy smaller houses. His neighbor Ted is at first moved to peaceful protest, but Willard Park is a crucible, boiling everyone’s fears and insecurities into an explosion.White Elephant is packed with flawed characters that are entertaining and sympathetic (well, most of them anyway). There’s Ted, the do-gooder who just wants his small town back; his wife, Allison, stifled in her sexless marriage and tempted by other options; their daughter Jillian, who just wants to be noticed; their neighbors, the volatile Nick and his trophy wife, Kaye, who is not as vapid as she appears; and new to the neighborhood, the pothead lawyer Grant and his wife Suzanne, who is coming to realize her marriage is going up in smoke. Animosity simmers until Nick Cox cuts down the maple tree that Ted planted when his daughter was born. The vitriol escalates exponentially, and the residents of Willard Park start behaving in ways they never deemed possible. This book is quite a page-turner, and each chapter introduces more conflict. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. Highly recommended. Many thanks to HarperCollins and Ecco Press for the advance copy in exchange for my review.