Animal People

The hilarious, tender and heartbreaking story of a watershed day in the life of Stephen - aimless, unhappy and unfulfilled, this stiflingly hot December day is the day he has decided to dump his girlfriend. A sharply observed, 24-hour urban love story. Why I can't review Animal People 'I read Charlotte Wood's novel Animal People twice. I think it's one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don't want to review Animal People . I want to recommend it. 'I felt I had been dismantled, cleaned and reassembled by the novel. The novel did not change me. It reintroduced me to the important parts that make up who I am. And this is why I have had such difficulty writing about Animal People . 'To write a review is to accept that this book is like the last book I reviewed. That Charlotte Wood's reason for writing is much like any other novelist's reason for writing - to tell a story. Well I can't do that. I feel that Charlotte Wood is an artist, a thinker, an observer, a chronicler, a radical whose work has great value above and beyond the standardised judgements of our day. Wood is writing literature of the kind which hopes to hit upon universal truths using only the simplest and most delicate tools. ' Animal People is not a long novel. It follows one man as he makes his way through a single day. But even so, within these pages Wood examines some of the loudest issues of our time — terrorism, materialism, social inequality, social welfare, animal cruelty, isolation-and the quietest — love, despair, commitment, loneliness, honesty. In brief, her little novel stalks the greatest of subjects, the human condition. How we live, how we love and how we communicate. And she does so with prose that is spare, considered, beautiful and graceful ... Who can I recommend Animal People to? The answer is — You. 'So, let me end by saying — I really recommend that you read Animal People .' John Purcell, Booktopia A sharply observed, 24-hour urban love story that follows Stephen Connolly - a character from the bestselling novel The Children - through one of the worst days of his life. The day he has decided to dump his girlfriend. On a stiflingly hot December day, Stephen has decided it's time to break up with his girlfriend Fiona. He's 39, aimless and unfulfilled, he's without a clue working out how to make his life better. All he has are his instincts - and unfortunately they might just be his downfall . As he makes his way through the pitiless city and the hours of a single day, Stephen must fend off his demanding family, endure another shift of his dead-end job at the zoo (including an excruciating teambuilding event), face up to Fiona's aggressive ex-husband and the hysteria of a children's birthday party that goes terribly wrong. As an ordinary day develops into an existential crisis, Stephen begins to understand - perhaps too late - that love is not a trap, and only he can free himself. Hilarious, tender and heartbreaking, Animal People is a portrait of urban life, a meditation on the conflicted nature of human-animal relationships, and a masterpiece of storytelling. Animal People invites readers to question the way we think about animals? what makes an 'animal person' What value do we, as a society, place on the lives of creatures? Do we brutalise our pets even as we love them? What's wrong with anthropomorphism anyway? Filled with challenging ideas and shocks of recognition and revelation, Animal People shows a writer of great depth and compassion at work The hilarious, tender and heartbreaking story of a watershed day in the life of Stephen - aimless, unhappy and unfulfilled, this stiflingly hot December day is the day he has decided to dump his girlfriend. A sharply observed, 24-hour urban love story. Why I can't review Animal People 'I read Charlotte Wood's novel Animal People twice. I think it's one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don't want to review Animal People . I want to recommend it. 'I felt I had been dismantled, cleaned and reassembled by the novel. The novel did not change me. It reintroduced me to the important parts that make up who I am. And this is why I have had such difficulty writing about Animal People . 'To write a review is to accept that this book is like the last book I reviewed. That Charlotte Wood's reason for writing is much like any other... FIC000000,book