Animal Review
Lisa Taddeo’s Joan is running from a troubled relationship with two deceased parents. She is running from a dead sugar daddy. She is running from herself.
From New York to California Joan heads to find Alice, and by the time we reach the Topanga Canyon we still don’t really know why. But we certainly know about Vic, along with a handful of other toxic men who have mistreated Joan in some form.
In various flashbacks we learn about her troubled affair with Vic, and his violent demise in the middle of a New York restaurant. We learn about a charmer named Big Sky. But at the center of this story is the complex relationship Joan fosters with Alice, a gorgeous yoga instructor with whom she becomes infatuated. Through Joan’s insights and intuition we slowly begin to understand what really ties these two together.
Animal is a visceral meditation on trauma and abuse, as well as an examination of the selfish and selfless in all of us. We’ve all met Joan before. We don’t need to know all about her to understand her. Some of us are Joan. In some respects, I am. As a man, Animal makes it hard to breathe comfortably while reading, as my gender is largely non grata in this book. But regardless of gender, the male gaze is experienced evocatively.
Animal seems to have been written under a bad mood. I could feel the disdain and distrust seeping from every page. Lengthwise it is more than a feasible venture at 331 pages, yet they were the longest 331 I’ve ever gone through. Every page locked me in a state of disconcert. I kept needing to stop, only to continue once regaining a sense of calm. And I had to continue, in a way that perhaps only other readers of this book can relate to. Animal is like a bad odor you have no choice but to keep wanting to smell.
Please do not let these reactions mislead any of you. This is a brilliant book and while I do hate men a bit more than I did pre-Animal, it should be experienced for the shock value at the very least.
Good luck making a movie out of this one.
An A-minus.
