D. H. Melhem

As this unsettling fable begins, Joseph, a solitary, retired widower, is hoeing his garden when he discovers 10 gnomelike, bald, mushroom-colored creatures, each of them one foot tall. Growing in soil irradiated by nuclear fallout, the ``ground people,'' as he calls them, are a fratricidal bunch whose incessant conflicts mirror human callousness, greed and wanton destruction of the environment. Joseph falls in love with one of the elves--sweet-tempered, poised Ava--and sheds his cynical show more shell, reexamining his driven life and his neglect of his estranged son, Jason. Harry, one of the ground people, conspires to murder their tyrannical leader, Edam, in a plot that involves Joseph as accomplice. With Edam dead, treacherous, possessive Harry menaces Ava with a knife, so protective Joseph kills the elf in his sleep. Illustrated with fey line drawings, this lyrical allegory raises basic questions about interspecies communication and cooperation, whether murder is ever justified, and how to heal our ruptured relationship with the earth. show less