Once upon an Elephant: A down to Earth Tale of Ganesh and What Happens When Worlds Collide

Brash, lurid, and wickedly funny, Once Upon An Elephant is a novel about what happens when worlds collide – a fantastical contemporary telling of the creation story of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu deity.

When police find the remains of a young man’s head and an elephant’s body, they assume a murder has been committed, and the case goes to trial with the suspected killer. But the courtroom appearance of Vighnesvara, a manifestation of Ganesh with a young man’s body and an elephant’s head, throws things into chaos: witnesses who testify in languages other than English, an accused who grows extra arms at will, and a murder victim who refuses to stay dead.

Ganesh is known as the lord of obstacles, and Once Upon an Elephant is strewn among them, twisting, turning, and thwarting expectations about race, class, and sexuality, all within an engaging and page-turning murder mystery.