White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf

White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf

A turf war between neighbors leads to a small-town crisis in this sharply observed debut novel perfect for fans of Tom Perrotta, Meg Wolitzer, and Celeste Ng.

The white elephant looms large over the town of Willard Park: a newly-constructed behemoth of a home, it towers over the quaint houses, including Allison and Ted Millers' tiny hundred year old home. When owner Nick Cox cuts down the 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 threatens to upend her quietly organized life. A lawyer with a pot habit and a serious mid-life 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 clash in conflicting pursuits of the American Dream, with trees mysteriously uprooted, fingers pointed, and lines drawn.

White Elephant is a tangled-web tale of a community on the verge and its all-too-human inhabitants, who long to connect but can't seem to find the words. It's a story about opposing sides struggling to find a middle ground--a parable for our times.

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.