Structure

“The Elephant Whisperer” by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence is a memoir of Anthony’s experience in taking on a rogue herd of elephants at his African game reserve. The book is comprised of forty-two chapters. In the brief prologue preceding the first chapter, Anthony establishes the premise of the story and describes the pristine bush of his reserve.

In the first chapter, Anthony introduces the reader to one of the main problems that plague conservationists in Africa – poaching. The chapter also describes the offer that Lawrence received to take on a troublesome herd of elephants which is the heart of the story and which is told in chronological order. The succeeding chapters describe Anthony’s struggle to deal with his three to six-ton new arrivals who were not happy to be at the reserve. Anthony describes how, through just talking gently to the matriarch, he was...