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The Animals in That Country
Out on the road, no one speaks, everything talks.
Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She’s never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue.
As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals — first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean’s infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin.
Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species. Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals in That Country asks what would happen if - for better or worse - we finally understood what animals were saying.
Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She’s never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue.
As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals — first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean’s infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin.
Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species. Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals in That Country asks what would happen if - for better or worse - we finally understood what animals were saying.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2020
About the author
Laura Jean McKay
15 books161 followersLaura Jean McKay is the author of THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY (Scribe 2020), winner of The Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature 2021, The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of an Aurealis Award 2021. The Animals in That Country was also shortlisted for The Stella Prize, The ASL Gold Medal, The Readings Prize and longlisted for The Miles Franklin. She is the author of HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA (Black Inc 2013) and an adjunct lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. Laura's next collection GUNFLOWER will be released in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 745 reviews
September 28, 2021
Winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award 2021!
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2021
Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2021
The Animals in That Country is a wild ride. It’s got a terrific, bonkers premise: a pandemic that enables people to (sort of) communicate with animals. It has an indelible protagonist: the grizzled Jean, a loose unit if ever there was one, who manages to keep her shit together (but barely) only when granddaughter Kim is around. It’s original, bizarre and thought-provoking.
The title comes from a Margaret Atwood poem—In that country the animals / have the faces of people (that line alone really creeps me out).
Guys, this ain’t Doctor Dolittle. McKay goes dark here—when people begin to understand what the animals (captive, wild, factory farmed) around them are ‘thinking’, it’s psychosis-inducing. At first, the clipped, staccato transmissions are garbled, like Google Translate on a bad day. But spend more time with a particular beast and comprehension grows easier. As Jean finds out when she teams up with a dingo named Sue and they hit the road, driving into the danger zone to look for Kim.
This is marketed as literary speculative fiction and that’s not wrong, but as a book about a contagion that causes people to go straight up insane, it skates pretty close to horror. Intelligent, entertaining, non-silly horror. To which I say, more please.
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2021
Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2021
The Animals in That Country is a wild ride. It’s got a terrific, bonkers premise: a pandemic that enables people to (sort of) communicate with animals. It has an indelible protagonist: the grizzled Jean, a loose unit if ever there was one, who manages to keep her shit together (but barely) only when granddaughter Kim is around. It’s original, bizarre and thought-provoking.
The title comes from a Margaret Atwood poem—In that country the animals / have the faces of people (that line alone really creeps me out).
Guys, this ain’t Doctor Dolittle. McKay goes dark here—when people begin to understand what the animals (captive, wild, factory farmed) around them are ‘thinking’, it’s psychosis-inducing. At first, the clipped, staccato transmissions are garbled, like Google Translate on a bad day. But spend more time with a particular beast and comprehension grows easier. As Jean finds out when she teams up with a dingo named Sue and they hit the road, driving into the danger zone to look for Kim.
This is marketed as literary speculative fiction and that’s not wrong, but as a book about a contagion that causes people to go straight up insane, it skates pretty close to horror. Intelligent, entertaining, non-silly horror. To which I say, more please.
December 7, 2021
Without a doubt, the premise of this novel was quite interesting and original.
Humans get infected with zooflu, which allows them to hear what the animals say and think. It makes them psychotic and unreasonable.
The main character and narrator of this novel is Jean, a middle-aged park guide. She's got a drinking/smoking problem, is foul-mouthed, and a bit of a mess, to put it kindly. She looks after her granddaughter, Kimberley, while her mother, Jean's de-facto former daughter in law, runs the animal park.
The zooflu seems to have taken over the entire country. When most people in the park get infected, things get perilous.
Jean and her favourite dingo, Sue, drive to the South of the country, to find Kimberley, who was taken by Jean's son. Obstacles have to be overcome, things happen.
This is a novel that I feel should have been more affecting. While I love an unlikeable female character, I'm afraid I didn't find Jean convincing and I thought her behaviour, actions and way of talking didn't quite fit together, even when allowing for human contradictions.
I appreciated McKay's restraint when it came to the animals' thoughts. It wasn't full-on philosophical soliloquies and logical conversations, but, after a while, I found myself skimming over those passages as they didn't add much to the story.
So, in conclusion, it had a great premise, but something was missing.
Humans get infected with zooflu, which allows them to hear what the animals say and think. It makes them psychotic and unreasonable.
The main character and narrator of this novel is Jean, a middle-aged park guide. She's got a drinking/smoking problem, is foul-mouthed, and a bit of a mess, to put it kindly. She looks after her granddaughter, Kimberley, while her mother, Jean's de-facto former daughter in law, runs the animal park.
The zooflu seems to have taken over the entire country. When most people in the park get infected, things get perilous.
Jean and her favourite dingo, Sue, drive to the South of the country, to find Kimberley, who was taken by Jean's son. Obstacles have to be overcome, things happen.
This is a novel that I feel should have been more affecting. While I love an unlikeable female character, I'm afraid I didn't find Jean convincing and I thought her behaviour, actions and way of talking didn't quite fit together, even when allowing for human contradictions.
I appreciated McKay's restraint when it came to the animals' thoughts. It wasn't full-on philosophical soliloquies and logical conversations, but, after a while, I found myself skimming over those passages as they didn't add much to the story.
So, in conclusion, it had a great premise, but something was missing.
December 31, 2019
An astonishingly immersive experience, with 2 amazing central characters, one a grumpy middle aged woman and one a half-breed dingo. This is the kind of book that changes something in your brain, your perspective on the world and your understanding of what fiction can do. Incredible - it's going to be a hit. (Thanks to Scribe for sending me an early copy!)
June 9, 2020
I'm clearly in the minority here.
This novel has everything I usually would love: topical (a miraculous synergy of viral pandemic and Tiger King) *and* dystopian literary fiction.
Instead, I found it really painful to engage with the onslaught of jumbled poetry from the animals, like Sue, and Jean, the alcoholic, emotionally masochistic grandmother, whose decisions are so unbelievable that it becomes very clear this novel is primarily plot-driven.
The ending fails to absolve the novel of its lack of development, a one-note event that falls short of the intended poignancy and thoughtfulness.
This novel has everything I usually would love: topical (a miraculous synergy of viral pandemic and Tiger King) *and* dystopian literary fiction.
Instead, I found it really painful to engage with the onslaught of jumbled poetry from the animals, like Sue, and Jean, the alcoholic, emotionally masochistic grandmother, whose decisions are so unbelievable that it becomes very clear this novel is primarily plot-driven.
The ending fails to absolve the novel of its lack of development, a one-note event that falls short of the intended poignancy and thoughtfulness.
December 18, 2020
3.5
I can't decide if I liked this or not. It certainly has a propulsive, spiky energy that kept me turning the pages. The ambition and imagination are laudable but it didn't completely convince.
Is it peevish to get so hung up on the mechanism of action of a virus that causes victims to understand animals?. "Just let it go", I kept telling myself, roll with the talking dingo and enjoy the story. But the author went so far as to tell us the "Zooflu" is caused by an H7N7 subtype of influenza A virus, a genus of orthomyxovirus, the viruses responsible for influenza. It is spread through saliva. A nice piece of virology, taken from any opening chapter on Influenza but which is later undercut by mentioning the hunt for a cure in the form of antibiotics .... sigh.
If anything, everyone needed a good slug of antipsychotics rather than the DIY trepanning some resorted to.
Never-the-less this has moments of brilliance, particularly the wildlife descriptions and the author's unique take on how the animal world talks. This is definitely not "The Lion King". Mostly, I found it impossible to understand the animals and their short, staccato poetry. Although eventually, you do find a thread of meaning and it is usually quite gross :
On a hillside
Run.
Bowel movement ( short and golden).
Sit.
(Yesterday), stay,
All the way down the track.
In many ways, this has a vibe not dissimilar to Charlotte Woods The Natural Way of Things, although this book is easier to enjoy, less relentlessly grim.
Jean, her grand-daughter Kimberley and dingo Sue give this novel a warm central relationship you can embrace and in the end, it helped me through all the incessant, non-sensically chattering of mice, crows, bats and eventually mosquitoes BLOOD! DIG DEEP.
An interesting and unique story that I am happy to have read but also equally delighted to move on from.
I can't decide if I liked this or not. It certainly has a propulsive, spiky energy that kept me turning the pages. The ambition and imagination are laudable but it didn't completely convince.
Is it peevish to get so hung up on the mechanism of action of a virus that causes victims to understand animals?. "Just let it go", I kept telling myself, roll with the talking dingo and enjoy the story. But the author went so far as to tell us the "Zooflu" is caused by an H7N7 subtype of influenza A virus, a genus of orthomyxovirus, the viruses responsible for influenza. It is spread through saliva. A nice piece of virology, taken from any opening chapter on Influenza but which is later undercut by mentioning the hunt for a cure in the form of antibiotics .... sigh.
If anything, everyone needed a good slug of antipsychotics rather than the DIY trepanning some resorted to.
Never-the-less this has moments of brilliance, particularly the wildlife descriptions and the author's unique take on how the animal world talks. This is definitely not "The Lion King". Mostly, I found it impossible to understand the animals and their short, staccato poetry. Although eventually, you do find a thread of meaning and it is usually quite gross :
On a hillside
Run.
Bowel movement ( short and golden).
Sit.
(Yesterday), stay,
All the way down the track.
In many ways, this has a vibe not dissimilar to Charlotte Woods The Natural Way of Things, although this book is easier to enjoy, less relentlessly grim.
Jean, her grand-daughter Kimberley and dingo Sue give this novel a warm central relationship you can embrace and in the end, it helped me through all the incessant, non-sensically chattering of mice, crows, bats and eventually mosquitoes BLOOD! DIG DEEP.
An interesting and unique story that I am happy to have read but also equally delighted to move on from.
June 20, 2020
- thanks to @scribepub and @booksontherails for the opportunity to read this book💕
I am glad to admit that I am in the minority here, as this book has outstanding reviews on Goodreads, meaning that people are genuinely enjoying it, at least way more than I did. I cannot ignore that my rating also has to do with the fact that I had huge expectations around this novel, and that certainly didn't help at all.
One of my most significant issues was with Jean, the protagonist. She is an unlikable and atypical character with whom I could not connect at any given time. I failed at empathising with her, with her motivations and her intentions, which lead me to detach myself from genuinely caring about whether or not she succeeded in her quest. I also couldn't form any connection with the secondary characters; even little Kimberly's characterisation was somehow odd and superficial, so I ended up not even caring about her, even though she is just a little innocent kid.
The idea of a virus that allows humans to communicate with animals is utterly fascinating, and that's why I had so many expectations about this novel. Unfortunately, everything develops in a bizarre and extremely unlikable scenario. The animals literally make no sense whatsoever; it's like they talk metaphorically and it's impossible to decode what they mean, which made the whole idea of 'humans can speak with animals' quite disappointing, as the animals do not have any interesting to say. I also would have liked more depth regarding how exactly the virus developed in the first place and the mechanics of it, as I still had questions about the 'hows' and the 'whys' even after I finished the book.
I also cannot ignore how uneasy I felt while reading this book. There is a continuous disturbing atmosphere underlying everything that happens, that made me feel weird but mostly uncomfortable.
Overall, The Animals in That Country was not my cup of tea. With an unusual writing style, unlikeable characters and a completely anti-climactic ending, I cannot say I enjoyed this book. I'd recommended it to readers that have a taste for unconventional dystopian/sci-fi novels.
I am glad to admit that I am in the minority here, as this book has outstanding reviews on Goodreads, meaning that people are genuinely enjoying it, at least way more than I did. I cannot ignore that my rating also has to do with the fact that I had huge expectations around this novel, and that certainly didn't help at all.
One of my most significant issues was with Jean, the protagonist. She is an unlikable and atypical character with whom I could not connect at any given time. I failed at empathising with her, with her motivations and her intentions, which lead me to detach myself from genuinely caring about whether or not she succeeded in her quest. I also couldn't form any connection with the secondary characters; even little Kimberly's characterisation was somehow odd and superficial, so I ended up not even caring about her, even though she is just a little innocent kid.
The idea of a virus that allows humans to communicate with animals is utterly fascinating, and that's why I had so many expectations about this novel. Unfortunately, everything develops in a bizarre and extremely unlikable scenario. The animals literally make no sense whatsoever; it's like they talk metaphorically and it's impossible to decode what they mean, which made the whole idea of 'humans can speak with animals' quite disappointing, as the animals do not have any interesting to say. I also would have liked more depth regarding how exactly the virus developed in the first place and the mechanics of it, as I still had questions about the 'hows' and the 'whys' even after I finished the book.
I also cannot ignore how uneasy I felt while reading this book. There is a continuous disturbing atmosphere underlying everything that happens, that made me feel weird but mostly uncomfortable.
Overall, The Animals in That Country was not my cup of tea. With an unusual writing style, unlikeable characters and a completely anti-climactic ending, I cannot say I enjoyed this book. I'd recommended it to readers that have a taste for unconventional dystopian/sci-fi novels.
June 30, 2020
Good premise. Good start of the book, but unfortunately it was downhill from there for me. I struggled with the writing style once the animals started talking and I got confused with the plot at points. Not really any likeable characters which is normally fine for me. But in this instance where it is a survival story, I genuinely did not care what happened to our main cast.
Read
May 10, 2021This is a game-changing, life-changing novel, the kind that comes along right when you need it, and compels you to listen to its terrifying poetry. Compulsively readable and yet also pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of language and narrative, this is a brilliant and disturbing book that will make you rethink everything you thought you understood about non-human animal sentience and agency. I don’t think any reader can ever forget a voice like Sue the dingo’s — wise and obscene in equal measure. A triumph.
Ceridwen Dovey
Wow! The Animals in That Country is refreshingly original and totally bonkers, and I read it at a furious pace. Jean Bennett is one of the most memorable characters I’ve read in a long time. I loved her brass and her messiness, and when the end of times comes, most of us will be lucky to have half her loyalty and determination. The story is hugely imaginative and fully realised, with McKay in total control of her creative vision. She explores the potential of human/nonhuman communication, and the result is as poetic as it is surprising. A great debut novel.
Alison Huber, Book Division Manager Readings
This novel is one wild ride, from beginning to end. I loved Jean’s character — middle-aged, flawed, and foul-mouthed — desperately trying to keep herself together and to hold on to the family she has left. Sue the dingo is a glorious character, full of wild instinct yet all-knowing about the humans she encounters. This is one of the most unique, quirky stories I’ve read in a long time and a telling insight into how we see and relate to native wildlife. Laura Jean McKay’s is a fresh, innovative voice with a story that grabs you by the muzzle, leading you on an apocalyptic trip that you won’t forget easily.
Jenny Barry, Booksplus Bathurst
This book drips with angst and excitement … a truly original story teeming with intrigue.
Suzie Bull, Farrells Bookshop, ABIA Bookseller of the Year 2018
Reminiscent of Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, McKay offers an exciting and necessary new voice in Australian fiction. We’ve all wished we could talk to animals, but McKay teaches us that we really should be careful what we wish for. By turns bizarre and profound, this is a striking debut.
Jaclyn Crupi, Hill of Content Bookshop
In this warm, wild, and irreverent debut, Laura Jean McKay takes us into the minds of animals to reveal the complexity of their lives. The Animals in That Country avoids the trap of anthropomorphism, showing instead the absurd, intense, and shifting bonds between humans and animals.
Mireille Juchau, author of The World Without Us
Deliriously strange, blackly hilarious, and completely exhilarating, The Animals In That Country is a wonderful debut from a genuinely original and exciting new voice.
James Bradley
Engrossing, subversive, and surprisingly profound, The Animals in That Country does something only the best fiction can do: it has the power to skew the reader’s perspective on the world. This story will stay with me for a long time, and its protagonist, Jean Bennett, will be with me even longer.
J.P. Pomare
McKay is a master at building tension through sparse, abrupt language that mirrors Jean’s decades of alcohol abuse, and the excellent world-building is enhanced by the exquisite chemistry between Jean and her canine companion Sue. Visceral and discombobulating yet tender, The Animals in That Country will appeal to readers who enjoyed the animal-led stories in Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, and the foreboding road trip in Romy Ash’s Floundering.
Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing
You know when you finish a book and you know that book will occupy your mind for a long time? The Animals in That Country is one of those. I haven’t read a book like it and I don’t think I will again ... The speech is almost poetic, full of metaphors and stunted syntax that (initially) confounds those hearing it ... This book is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and soul-crushingly depressing, in a way I can only describe as reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. FIVE STARS
Max Lewis, Good Reading
If you read The Animals in That Country, it will be the wildest ride you take all year.
Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper
Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.
Arts Review
The writing is vibrant, energetic and refreshing, and the narrative leaps off the page ... a wild, engaging ride for readers.
Karen Viggers, The Australian
Laura Jean McKay, an expert in animal communication, has her animals speaking in hallucinogenic haikus — it’s disturbing but compelling, and somehow totally believable. I loved every bizarre, unexpected moment.
Corinna Hente, Herald Sun
An incredible achievement in storytelling, and absolutely worth your time ... one of the best Australian novels of the year.
Nicholas Wasiliev, Booktopia
Eerily prescient … The Animals in That Country offers a timely take on the fraught ways animals feature in our lives, and how devastating it would be if we heard what they had to say. FIVE STARS
Erin Stewart, ArtsHub
This is a work of not only remarkable linguistic skill but also one that brilliantly captures our relationship with the inhabitants of this wild world. FOUR STARS
Mitchell Jordan, The Big Issue
The genius stroke of The Animals in That Country is the preternatural ‘body talk’ of its animals ... an affecting book, one that gets remarkably close to the unknowable wildness of animal sentience.
Jack Callil, The Age
A standout debut novel of 2020 ... Original, hugely entertaining and superbly crafted, this is one heck of a road-trip novel, whose timing and insights into human behaviour in a crisis could not be more prescient.
Alison Huber, Readings Booksellers
Strikingly original ... It’s a tale that is at turns bizarre and surprisingly affecting, populated by a cast of richly idiosyncratic characters and posing timely questions about the ways we relate both to animals and to each other.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West
This is a beguiling, thought-provoking story penned with passion, intricate animals knowledge and great creativity ... Disturbing, challenging and addictive, the book prompts you to wonder about what animals are really thinking.
Sue Wallace, The Weekly Times
McKay is a master of voice-driven narrative. I never thought a substance-abusing grandmother was just who I needed to take me on an apocalyptic road trip — and that long after I gulped the book down, I'd be haunted by the words of a dingo called Sue.
Sofija Stefanovic, author of Miss Ex-Yugoslavia
This is an absorbing and affecting book, and one to which I’m able to pay the highest compliment: that, in the days after finishing it, the world felt different to me, its animals not speaking but not silent either.
Ben Brooker, Australian Book Review
The beauty of this book is that it never quite goes where the reader expects it to go. McKay zigs when the reader expects her to zag. And the whole builds to a kind of slow-moving climax ... The Animals in That Country takes an intriguing premise and absolutely runs with it. While delivering one of the strangest road trips ever, McKay considers the nature of family, the human response to the unknown and our relationship with the animals kingdom, among other things.
Robert Goodman, The Blurb
McKay has written a searing dystopian critique of our relationship with the natural world … Through poetic projections of what the animals might say if they could, McKay highlights our limited capacity to communicate with language, and our human-centric view of the natural order … Earthy, visceral, at-times obscene and all-too-real, The Animals In That Country is nevertheless compelling and oddly buoying … McKay is a masterful storyteller, and her talent truly shines in this quest for family and belonging.
Sheree Strange, Primer
As we grapple with a worldwide pandemic, Australian author McKay’s novel is incredibly timely and feels all the more real for it … filled with humour, optimism, and grace: a wild ride worth taking. An eye-opening glimpse into a world that’s turned upside down and eventually becomes its own version of whole.
Carol Gladstein, Booklist
[A] compelling and haunting debut … Scattered with dark humour and driven by a compelling plot, The Animals in That Country is an outstanding and timely examination of human morality. It will change the way you view both animals and the world.
Chloë Cooper, Audrey Magazine
Part pandemic novel and part beast fable, McKay’s novel, which takes its title from a Margaret Atwood poem, imagines a disease that causes humans to understand animal language, down to the lowliest insect. Acerbic wildlife guide Jean and a dingo named Sue set off through the Australian Outback in pursuit of the former’s son, who has absconded south after losing his mind, like so many others, due to the new voices that now seemingly occupy every space.
Publishers Weekly, ‘Going Viral: New Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020’
Disturbingly timely, The Animals In That Country chronicles the journey of one no-bullshit woman and her half-wild dingo as they race against a deadly pandemic. Jean is brilliantly crafted — unapologetically rough and yet filled with hidden vulnerability. McKay's tale pulled me in with its entertaining nature then dragged me under with its profound nuance.
Laura Graveline, Brazos Bookstore
Surprising and surprisingly-convincing characters, and a well-realised, inventive premise.
Kate Evans, ABC News
A gritty and innovative wonder about an animal-borne virus (yep) that cracks opens channels between interspecies communication. The result is a raucous fever dream of a road story, evocative of Kenneth Cook, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ceridwen Dovey – but ultimately, McKay defies comparison.
Josephine Rowe
A timely dystopian novel in which a dangerous flu sweeps across Australia, giving those infected the power to speak with animals, with dark, disturbing results.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
A wildly inventive dystopian adventure … Both a hell of a ride and a revealing thought experiment about our place in the natural world.
Dan Kois, Slate
The Animals in That Country is an uncanny book, in no small part because it was released in March and has a pandemic is at its centre … McKay’s book is madcap and poetic by turns; concerned about exactly what constitutes the relationships between humans and animals, and how we see each other and interact in this world we share.
Fiona Wright, The Guardian
This book changed the way I look at the relationship between humans and animals, and it has one of the most wonderful dingo protagonists in Sue.
Krissy Kneen, Broadsheet
Bold and strikingly inventive.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West Australian
The novel’s main subject is the absurdity of the disconnect between politicians’ public announcements and the reality of events. Fans of Martin McKenzie-Murray’s journalism will have been looking forward to this book, and there are some clever insights and some laughs to be had.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
McKay does not offer us anthropomorphised cartoons, but a vocabulary formed by scent and breath … As the novel progresses, and more animals are introduced, it becomes impossible not to believe in McKay’s creative choices. In the arrangement and the rhythms and the personalities of each animal she translates, it is obvious McKay withheld nothing … McKay has not written a white lie about how lovely it would be to speak with a dog. Instead, she has asked that necessary, and uncomfortable question: Do we really want to know what the rest of the planet thinks of us?
Necessary Fiction
It was an absorbing read. Really inventive storytelling.
Kate Miller-Heidke, Sydney Morning Herald
The Animals in that Country is that rare thing: an intellectually ambitious, formally innovative Australian novel that is accessible to a broad readership. It’s also wonderfully macabre … This is a work of fiction utterly capable of swaying the cultural imaginary … well-researched, impeccably crafted, and, above all, intelligent.
Julienne van Loon, The Conversation
Amazing.
Pip Adam, Stuff
Ceridwen Dovey
Wow! The Animals in That Country is refreshingly original and totally bonkers, and I read it at a furious pace. Jean Bennett is one of the most memorable characters I’ve read in a long time. I loved her brass and her messiness, and when the end of times comes, most of us will be lucky to have half her loyalty and determination. The story is hugely imaginative and fully realised, with McKay in total control of her creative vision. She explores the potential of human/nonhuman communication, and the result is as poetic as it is surprising. A great debut novel.
Alison Huber, Book Division Manager Readings
This novel is one wild ride, from beginning to end. I loved Jean’s character — middle-aged, flawed, and foul-mouthed — desperately trying to keep herself together and to hold on to the family she has left. Sue the dingo is a glorious character, full of wild instinct yet all-knowing about the humans she encounters. This is one of the most unique, quirky stories I’ve read in a long time and a telling insight into how we see and relate to native wildlife. Laura Jean McKay’s is a fresh, innovative voice with a story that grabs you by the muzzle, leading you on an apocalyptic trip that you won’t forget easily.
Jenny Barry, Booksplus Bathurst
This book drips with angst and excitement … a truly original story teeming with intrigue.
Suzie Bull, Farrells Bookshop, ABIA Bookseller of the Year 2018
Reminiscent of Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, McKay offers an exciting and necessary new voice in Australian fiction. We’ve all wished we could talk to animals, but McKay teaches us that we really should be careful what we wish for. By turns bizarre and profound, this is a striking debut.
Jaclyn Crupi, Hill of Content Bookshop
In this warm, wild, and irreverent debut, Laura Jean McKay takes us into the minds of animals to reveal the complexity of their lives. The Animals in That Country avoids the trap of anthropomorphism, showing instead the absurd, intense, and shifting bonds between humans and animals.
Mireille Juchau, author of The World Without Us
Deliriously strange, blackly hilarious, and completely exhilarating, The Animals In That Country is a wonderful debut from a genuinely original and exciting new voice.
James Bradley
Engrossing, subversive, and surprisingly profound, The Animals in That Country does something only the best fiction can do: it has the power to skew the reader’s perspective on the world. This story will stay with me for a long time, and its protagonist, Jean Bennett, will be with me even longer.
J.P. Pomare
McKay is a master at building tension through sparse, abrupt language that mirrors Jean’s decades of alcohol abuse, and the excellent world-building is enhanced by the exquisite chemistry between Jean and her canine companion Sue. Visceral and discombobulating yet tender, The Animals in That Country will appeal to readers who enjoyed the animal-led stories in Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, and the foreboding road trip in Romy Ash’s Floundering.
Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing
You know when you finish a book and you know that book will occupy your mind for a long time? The Animals in That Country is one of those. I haven’t read a book like it and I don’t think I will again ... The speech is almost poetic, full of metaphors and stunted syntax that (initially) confounds those hearing it ... This book is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and soul-crushingly depressing, in a way I can only describe as reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. FIVE STARS
Max Lewis, Good Reading
If you read The Animals in That Country, it will be the wildest ride you take all year.
Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper
Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.
Arts Review
The writing is vibrant, energetic and refreshing, and the narrative leaps off the page ... a wild, engaging ride for readers.
Karen Viggers, The Australian
Laura Jean McKay, an expert in animal communication, has her animals speaking in hallucinogenic haikus — it’s disturbing but compelling, and somehow totally believable. I loved every bizarre, unexpected moment.
Corinna Hente, Herald Sun
An incredible achievement in storytelling, and absolutely worth your time ... one of the best Australian novels of the year.
Nicholas Wasiliev, Booktopia
Eerily prescient … The Animals in That Country offers a timely take on the fraught ways animals feature in our lives, and how devastating it would be if we heard what they had to say. FIVE STARS
Erin Stewart, ArtsHub
This is a work of not only remarkable linguistic skill but also one that brilliantly captures our relationship with the inhabitants of this wild world. FOUR STARS
Mitchell Jordan, The Big Issue
The genius stroke of The Animals in That Country is the preternatural ‘body talk’ of its animals ... an affecting book, one that gets remarkably close to the unknowable wildness of animal sentience.
Jack Callil, The Age
A standout debut novel of 2020 ... Original, hugely entertaining and superbly crafted, this is one heck of a road-trip novel, whose timing and insights into human behaviour in a crisis could not be more prescient.
Alison Huber, Readings Booksellers
Strikingly original ... It’s a tale that is at turns bizarre and surprisingly affecting, populated by a cast of richly idiosyncratic characters and posing timely questions about the ways we relate both to animals and to each other.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West
This is a beguiling, thought-provoking story penned with passion, intricate animals knowledge and great creativity ... Disturbing, challenging and addictive, the book prompts you to wonder about what animals are really thinking.
Sue Wallace, The Weekly Times
McKay is a master of voice-driven narrative. I never thought a substance-abusing grandmother was just who I needed to take me on an apocalyptic road trip — and that long after I gulped the book down, I'd be haunted by the words of a dingo called Sue.
Sofija Stefanovic, author of Miss Ex-Yugoslavia
This is an absorbing and affecting book, and one to which I’m able to pay the highest compliment: that, in the days after finishing it, the world felt different to me, its animals not speaking but not silent either.
Ben Brooker, Australian Book Review
The beauty of this book is that it never quite goes where the reader expects it to go. McKay zigs when the reader expects her to zag. And the whole builds to a kind of slow-moving climax ... The Animals in That Country takes an intriguing premise and absolutely runs with it. While delivering one of the strangest road trips ever, McKay considers the nature of family, the human response to the unknown and our relationship with the animals kingdom, among other things.
Robert Goodman, The Blurb
McKay has written a searing dystopian critique of our relationship with the natural world … Through poetic projections of what the animals might say if they could, McKay highlights our limited capacity to communicate with language, and our human-centric view of the natural order … Earthy, visceral, at-times obscene and all-too-real, The Animals In That Country is nevertheless compelling and oddly buoying … McKay is a masterful storyteller, and her talent truly shines in this quest for family and belonging.
Sheree Strange, Primer
As we grapple with a worldwide pandemic, Australian author McKay’s novel is incredibly timely and feels all the more real for it … filled with humour, optimism, and grace: a wild ride worth taking. An eye-opening glimpse into a world that’s turned upside down and eventually becomes its own version of whole.
Carol Gladstein, Booklist
[A] compelling and haunting debut … Scattered with dark humour and driven by a compelling plot, The Animals in That Country is an outstanding and timely examination of human morality. It will change the way you view both animals and the world.
Chloë Cooper, Audrey Magazine
Part pandemic novel and part beast fable, McKay’s novel, which takes its title from a Margaret Atwood poem, imagines a disease that causes humans to understand animal language, down to the lowliest insect. Acerbic wildlife guide Jean and a dingo named Sue set off through the Australian Outback in pursuit of the former’s son, who has absconded south after losing his mind, like so many others, due to the new voices that now seemingly occupy every space.
Publishers Weekly, ‘Going Viral: New Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020’
Disturbingly timely, The Animals In That Country chronicles the journey of one no-bullshit woman and her half-wild dingo as they race against a deadly pandemic. Jean is brilliantly crafted — unapologetically rough and yet filled with hidden vulnerability. McKay's tale pulled me in with its entertaining nature then dragged me under with its profound nuance.
Laura Graveline, Brazos Bookstore
Surprising and surprisingly-convincing characters, and a well-realised, inventive premise.
Kate Evans, ABC News
A gritty and innovative wonder about an animal-borne virus (yep) that cracks opens channels between interspecies communication. The result is a raucous fever dream of a road story, evocative of Kenneth Cook, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ceridwen Dovey – but ultimately, McKay defies comparison.
Josephine Rowe
A timely dystopian novel in which a dangerous flu sweeps across Australia, giving those infected the power to speak with animals, with dark, disturbing results.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
A wildly inventive dystopian adventure … Both a hell of a ride and a revealing thought experiment about our place in the natural world.
Dan Kois, Slate
The Animals in That Country is an uncanny book, in no small part because it was released in March and has a pandemic is at its centre … McKay’s book is madcap and poetic by turns; concerned about exactly what constitutes the relationships between humans and animals, and how we see each other and interact in this world we share.
Fiona Wright, The Guardian
This book changed the way I look at the relationship between humans and animals, and it has one of the most wonderful dingo protagonists in Sue.
Krissy Kneen, Broadsheet
Bold and strikingly inventive.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West Australian
The novel’s main subject is the absurdity of the disconnect between politicians’ public announcements and the reality of events. Fans of Martin McKenzie-Murray’s journalism will have been looking forward to this book, and there are some clever insights and some laughs to be had.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
McKay does not offer us anthropomorphised cartoons, but a vocabulary formed by scent and breath … As the novel progresses, and more animals are introduced, it becomes impossible not to believe in McKay’s creative choices. In the arrangement and the rhythms and the personalities of each animal she translates, it is obvious McKay withheld nothing … McKay has not written a white lie about how lovely it would be to speak with a dog. Instead, she has asked that necessary, and uncomfortable question: Do we really want to know what the rest of the planet thinks of us?
Necessary Fiction
It was an absorbing read. Really inventive storytelling.
Kate Miller-Heidke, Sydney Morning Herald
The Animals in that Country is that rare thing: an intellectually ambitious, formally innovative Australian novel that is accessible to a broad readership. It’s also wonderfully macabre … This is a work of fiction utterly capable of swaying the cultural imaginary … well-researched, impeccably crafted, and, above all, intelligent.
Julienne van Loon, The Conversation
Amazing.
Pip Adam, Stuff
August 27, 2022
I always appreciate a non-stereotypical grandmother in fiction and Jean, the protagonist of “The Animals in That Country”, is foul-mouthed, hard drinking and sexual. She also adores her granddaughter Kimberly who is the only human with whom she shares a strong emotional bond. Her colleagues at the zoo where she gives guided tours don't think of Jean as a real ranger. She's estranged from her son. She's blocked from posting on certain websites. And her occasional lover is more devoted to his boyfriend. So it's only natural she feels a connection with the animals she cares for. She humorously makes up voices for them while guessing what the beasts are thinking and establishes what she believes to be a special kinship with a dingo named Sue. A mysterious disease quickly spreads across Australia that causes a pinkness in the eye and humans to hear everything that living creatures communicate. Life at the zoo is upturned. People go mad being bombarded with the thoughts of animals and most distance themselves from them as much as possible. When Kimberly's infected father takes her away to discover what whales are really saying, Jean sets out on a road trip to retrieve her alongside her companion Sue. This makes for a highly unique buddy journey as Jean gradually becomes more attuned to the surprising things that all the animals around her are really thinking and saying.
Read my full review of The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay at LonesomeReader
Read my full review of The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay at LonesomeReader
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December 26, 2021Rekao bi čovek da je teško ako ne i nemoguće napisati uverljiv, potresan i liričan roman o tome kako se pojavi grip od koga ljudi počnu da komuniciraju sa životinjama. Ali, desilo se, evo ga pred nama.
The Animals in That Country zapravo priča dve priče koje su autorki ali i nama čitaocima jednako važne:
1. Kako bi zaista izgledala komunikacija sa životinjama (i pticama, i insektima) i šta bismo onda sve novo saznali? Lora Džin Mekej uspeva da dočara svet u kome bi roj mušica na nas delovao gore nego pun autobus razdraženih predškolaca i u kome bi nemogućnost razgovora s mačkama bila uzdignuta na jedan viši nivo: njene životinje ne "progovore" ljudskim ili paraljudskim jezikom, već ljudi steknu sposobnost da osete kojima ih druga živa bića bombarduju - ne samo zvucima već i mirisom, dodirom, svime - dekodiraju i prevode, doduše često netačno ili približno, u ljudske reči. Ono što roman pomera bliže teritoriji horora jeste činjenica da nije u pitanju voljan i kontrolisan proces: opisuje se situacija u kojoj sve vreme čujete šta pričaju, pevaju i brbljaju i pacovi u kanalizacionim cevima i mravi na kuhinjskom podu i ptice na drvetu ispred prozora, i to je nesnosno i užasno. Deliričnosti situacije doprinosi majstorski uhvaćen australijski pejzaž i njegova zauvek uvrnuta fauna.
EDIT: i nisam napomenula koliko ovo nije plačljivo eko-popovanje ali jeste bistrim okom sagledan odnos ljudi i životinja. Životinje nisu ni bolje ni gore od ljudi, one prosto postoje i vladaju se prema nekim drugačijim pravilima. I prelepo je prikazano koliko ljudi ne mogu da se snađu kad se pred njima otvori perspektiva u kojoj ČUJU šta pričaju svinje koje voze na klanicu. (lično mislim da bi se ubrzo navikli, autorka izgleda gaji više optimizma i vere u ljude)
2. Naratorka. U romanima koje pokreće jedna čista, jasna, precizna SF promena prikazanog sveta, naratori su najčešće mrtvi obični i normalni ljudi. Džin Benet jeste obična u smislu da je čest slučaj ali nije gola cifra koja nam opisuje šta se dešava svetu oko nas. Ona je (mlada) baba alkoholičarka, prilično neobrazovana, često sebična, očajno procenjuje druge ljude i situacije u kojima se zatekne, i bezuslovno voli sina propaliteta i malu unuku - zapravo, jedini razlog što se Džin na početku knjige i dalje zubima i kandžama drži za neki privid normalnosti i pribranosti jeste to što se očajnički trudi da joj bivša snaja ne uskrati viđanja s detetom. I kad sin (propalitet, rekoh) otme ćerkicu i ode u nepoznatom pravcu, Džin će sklopiti neki poludogovor s poludivljom ženkom dinga, spakovati je u auto i krenuti u potragu za njima.
I njen glas - često pijan, besan, izluđujuće zaslepljen, ali i sa specifičnom poetskom notom koja dolazi do izražaja u scenama sa životinjama - suvereno odzvanja kroz celu knjigu. Na jednom nivou, ovo je tužna priča i tužan konac ima: o nekome ko sistemski i uporno donosi pogrešne odluke i onda snosi njihove grozne i sve groznije (ali zaslužene) posledice. Ali Džin sve što joj se dešava podnosi bez samosažaljenja i kuknjave - i što je mnogo važnije, bez autorkinog dignutog prsta u pozadini: nekako joj je pošlo za rukom da se istovremeno užasavamo nad neverovatnim glupostima koje Džin radi i da svim srcem navijamo za nju. Iako je od starta jasno da stvari idu u sunovrat. Jer: ovo je tužna priča i tužan konac ima (...) U svakome psu je čovjek, u čovjeku pseto spava.
(znam da je smešno povezivati australijski SF o babama i Arsena Dedića, ali ova pesma deluje još malo pa kao komentar na roman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkRV3... )
The Animals in That Country zapravo priča dve priče koje su autorki ali i nama čitaocima jednako važne:
1. Kako bi zaista izgledala komunikacija sa životinjama (i pticama, i insektima) i šta bismo onda sve novo saznali? Lora Džin Mekej uspeva da dočara svet u kome bi roj mušica na nas delovao gore nego pun autobus razdraženih predškolaca i u kome bi nemogućnost razgovora s mačkama bila uzdignuta na jedan viši nivo: njene životinje ne "progovore" ljudskim ili paraljudskim jezikom, već ljudi steknu sposobnost da osete kojima ih druga živa bića bombarduju - ne samo zvucima već i mirisom, dodirom, svime - dekodiraju i prevode, doduše često netačno ili približno, u ljudske reči. Ono što roman pomera bliže teritoriji horora jeste činjenica da nije u pitanju voljan i kontrolisan proces: opisuje se situacija u kojoj sve vreme čujete šta pričaju, pevaju i brbljaju i pacovi u kanalizacionim cevima i mravi na kuhinjskom podu i ptice na drvetu ispred prozora, i to je nesnosno i užasno. Deliričnosti situacije doprinosi majstorski uhvaćen australijski pejzaž i njegova zauvek uvrnuta fauna.
EDIT: i nisam napomenula koliko ovo nije plačljivo eko-popovanje ali jeste bistrim okom sagledan odnos ljudi i životinja. Životinje nisu ni bolje ni gore od ljudi, one prosto postoje i vladaju se prema nekim drugačijim pravilima. I prelepo je prikazano koliko ljudi ne mogu da se snađu kad se pred njima otvori perspektiva u kojoj ČUJU šta pričaju svinje koje voze na klanicu. (lično mislim da bi se ubrzo navikli, autorka izgleda gaji više optimizma i vere u ljude)
2. Naratorka. U romanima koje pokreće jedna čista, jasna, precizna SF promena prikazanog sveta, naratori su najčešće mrtvi obični i normalni ljudi. Džin Benet jeste obična u smislu da je čest slučaj ali nije gola cifra koja nam opisuje šta se dešava svetu oko nas. Ona je (mlada) baba alkoholičarka, prilično neobrazovana, često sebična, očajno procenjuje druge ljude i situacije u kojima se zatekne, i bezuslovno voli sina propaliteta i malu unuku - zapravo, jedini razlog što se Džin na početku knjige i dalje zubima i kandžama drži za neki privid normalnosti i pribranosti jeste to što se očajnički trudi da joj bivša snaja ne uskrati viđanja s detetom. I kad sin (propalitet, rekoh) otme ćerkicu i ode u nepoznatom pravcu, Džin će sklopiti neki poludogovor s poludivljom ženkom dinga, spakovati je u auto i krenuti u potragu za njima.
I njen glas - često pijan, besan, izluđujuće zaslepljen, ali i sa specifičnom poetskom notom koja dolazi do izražaja u scenama sa životinjama - suvereno odzvanja kroz celu knjigu. Na jednom nivou, ovo je tužna priča i tužan konac ima: o nekome ko sistemski i uporno donosi pogrešne odluke i onda snosi njihove grozne i sve groznije (ali zaslužene) posledice. Ali Džin sve što joj se dešava podnosi bez samosažaljenja i kuknjave - i što je mnogo važnije, bez autorkinog dignutog prsta u pozadini: nekako joj je pošlo za rukom da se istovremeno užasavamo nad neverovatnim glupostima koje Džin radi i da svim srcem navijamo za nju. Iako je od starta jasno da stvari idu u sunovrat. Jer: ovo je tužna priča i tužan konac ima (...) U svakome psu je čovjek, u čovjeku pseto spava.
(znam da je smešno povezivati australijski SF o babama i Arsena Dedića, ali ova pesma deluje još malo pa kao komentar na roman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkRV3... )
March 6, 2020
Wow, this book is a wild ride. The Animals in That Country is the kind of novel that is truly exciting. It is a debut that captures the living, breathing, visceral heart of the Australian landscape; where the line between the order of human society, and the wilderness of the animal world is wafer thin.
It would be easy to call this a pandemic novel (and that would push a few buttons at this moment in time). But McKay’s pandemic is so much more than an examine of a world in chaos, where fear and isolation drive us to become our most savage selves. The zooflu is instead a vehicle to explore the complex inner worlds of the animals we share our space with. This examination is at times brutal, graphic, and almost consistently finds humans wanting.
The heart of this novel though, is Jean and Sue. A grizzled, alcoholic park ranger, and wise, half-bred dingo. Both central characters are unapologetically messy and flawed, and in being such are wholly believable. I have read very few books people with such original and memorable voices.
This book is a wild feat of imagination, tightly controlled, and thrilling at every turn. I am already sad that I won’t get to read it for the first time again.
Thanks to Scribe for an advance review copy of this amazing book. I am very grateful.
It would be easy to call this a pandemic novel (and that would push a few buttons at this moment in time). But McKay’s pandemic is so much more than an examine of a world in chaos, where fear and isolation drive us to become our most savage selves. The zooflu is instead a vehicle to explore the complex inner worlds of the animals we share our space with. This examination is at times brutal, graphic, and almost consistently finds humans wanting.
The heart of this novel though, is Jean and Sue. A grizzled, alcoholic park ranger, and wise, half-bred dingo. Both central characters are unapologetically messy and flawed, and in being such are wholly believable. I have read very few books people with such original and memorable voices.
This book is a wild feat of imagination, tightly controlled, and thrilling at every turn. I am already sad that I won’t get to read it for the first time again.
Thanks to Scribe for an advance review copy of this amazing book. I am very grateful.
October 31, 2020
15 pages in I wrote that so far I was loving it: curmudgeonly elderly woman, Aussie lingo, Aussie place, and that a very interesting premiss happened. I also said "it could all still go south." And it did. After about the 1/4-mark, the book stalled. The set-up was promising but once the action really got going and a momentous, life-changing incident propelled everything forward --- it didn't. This is the Achilles heel of lit fic borrowing from science fiction: fantastic idea but no follow-through. Instead of compelling world building, instead of characters I fear for and a suspenseful plot, even instead of philosophic ruminations and beautiful prose -- there is literary self-indulgence that circles around the same thing over and over. When bad things do happen, I cared so little that I barely noticed them happening. No character arc. The world didn't make sense. The ending is at once deus ex machina and open-ended literariness. It made no sense to me how extreme was the reaction of humans to the calamity and how minimal was the reaction of non-human animals to the changed situation. One poignant moment occurs with pigs, and that's it.
May 23, 2020
Earthy, visceral, at-times obscene and all-too-real, The Animals In That Country is nevertheless compelling and oddly buoying. McKay is a masterful storyteller, and her talent truly shines in this quest for family and belonging. Reading it reminded me that opportunity can arise from hardship, and reignited my hope that some good might come of it all.
My full review on Primer here.
My full review on Primer here.
December 8, 2021
4.50 Stars (Rnd ⬆️) — Well knock the stuffing out of a Christmas Day Turkey, what a flabbergast-state this Aussie -gem-of-a-novel has imposed on my current consciousness. This — extremely prescient — pandemic-induced apocalyptic tale about a virus that allows it’s infected to hear the thoughts of, as well as converse with all animals of the world, resulting in a mayhem, fuelled by guilt-laden-behaviour in the Australian posse of characters.
Such is the strange, nuanced and — at times — discomposed bursting-aftershocks this narrative inflicted on me. Tis’ an onerous task to describe the way the tropes landed in my readers-eye, but best I can summon is it felt like a futuristic-burst-fire-rifle that was loaded with layered vignettes of language, which began to morph and evolve the moment I had deciphered them. As if each sentence was then reverberated back through my literary-layman-sorting-machine — albeit an overly simplistic one — to then be left in remnants, esoteric and recondite, resulting in perhaps the highest rate of paragraph-rereading I’ve ever encountered. That — painfully — said, it was a profoundly pleasure filled duty that had me in fits of cogitative romance, notwithstanding the abstruseness of the beautiful prose at hand.
Laura Jean Mackay is a seriously (near) overpowered talent that could be just about any literary form of greatness she so wishes, come 20 years from now. This novel is layered so robustly and is so multi-faceted that one chapter contains a myriad of social imagination and societal commentaries whilst somehow conjunctively throwing in deep-seeded reflections of self in its pages, topped with the overall theme of generational-guilt befalling its current generation. A feat to marvel upon in-and-of-itself.
Despite the above, this Novel has been a victim of its own design — somewhat — Being that it involves a centrally Aussie narrative to fully appreciate, whilst also reflecting current US topical prescient themes in mirroring the current issues abroad with some white-folk to Indigenous Australian reprisals, a highlight being the ‘Storytime’ associations in the pandemic itself. There is also the ‘small market’ factor all Aussie Literary talents meet early-on in their careers — a wall 99% never manage to scale. This author however, appears to have the necessary climbing gear to mitigate this adversarial arc and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Such is the strange, nuanced and — at times — discomposed bursting-aftershocks this narrative inflicted on me. Tis’ an onerous task to describe the way the tropes landed in my readers-eye, but best I can summon is it felt like a futuristic-burst-fire-rifle that was loaded with layered vignettes of language, which began to morph and evolve the moment I had deciphered them. As if each sentence was then reverberated back through my literary-layman-sorting-machine — albeit an overly simplistic one — to then be left in remnants, esoteric and recondite, resulting in perhaps the highest rate of paragraph-rereading I’ve ever encountered. That — painfully — said, it was a profoundly pleasure filled duty that had me in fits of cogitative romance, notwithstanding the abstruseness of the beautiful prose at hand.
Laura Jean Mackay is a seriously (near) overpowered talent that could be just about any literary form of greatness she so wishes, come 20 years from now. This novel is layered so robustly and is so multi-faceted that one chapter contains a myriad of social imagination and societal commentaries whilst somehow conjunctively throwing in deep-seeded reflections of self in its pages, topped with the overall theme of generational-guilt befalling its current generation. A feat to marvel upon in-and-of-itself.
Despite the above, this Novel has been a victim of its own design — somewhat — Being that it involves a centrally Aussie narrative to fully appreciate, whilst also reflecting current US topical prescient themes in mirroring the current issues abroad with some white-folk to Indigenous Australian reprisals, a highlight being the ‘Storytime’ associations in the pandemic itself. There is also the ‘small market’ factor all Aussie Literary talents meet early-on in their careers — a wall 99% never manage to scale. This author however, appears to have the necessary climbing gear to mitigate this adversarial arc and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
September 30, 2020
A strange book, very creative and must have caused headaches for the author and her editors.
A pandemic novel but with a difference. People start to hear what animals are saying. Some can also smell, hear, taster and feel like the animals. Some can even hear birds and bugs. No Dr Dolittle as what is heard is not easily understood and is full of gibberish.
The narrator is a rough and ready woman who works in an animal sanctuary. She likes a drink and a smoke and is probably an alcoholic. Except for drinking her highlight of the week is the day when she babysits her young granddaughter.
The book gets progressively more chaotic as the virus takes hold and grandma goes off with a dingo to find her missing grandchild. Its impressive writing but lost me at times.
A pandemic novel but with a difference. People start to hear what animals are saying. Some can also smell, hear, taster and feel like the animals. Some can even hear birds and bugs. No Dr Dolittle as what is heard is not easily understood and is full of gibberish.
The narrator is a rough and ready woman who works in an animal sanctuary. She likes a drink and a smoke and is probably an alcoholic. Except for drinking her highlight of the week is the day when she babysits her young granddaughter.
The book gets progressively more chaotic as the virus takes hold and grandma goes off with a dingo to find her missing grandchild. Its impressive writing but lost me at times.
February 26, 2020
Wow, what a cracker this is.
Completely original, funny, heartbreaking, unexpected, terrifying, hopeful, and so beautifully and warmly rendered.
A compelling and urgent book about compelling and urgent things.
Brilliant.
Completely original, funny, heartbreaking, unexpected, terrifying, hopeful, and so beautifully and warmly rendered.
A compelling and urgent book about compelling and urgent things.
Brilliant.
June 13, 2021
This book fucked me UP. Highly recommended.
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May 10, 2021This is a game-changing, life-changing novel, the kind that comes along right when you need it, and compels you to listen to its terrifying poetry. Compulsively readable and yet also pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of language and narrative, this is a brilliant and disturbing book that will make you rethink everything you thought you understood about non-human animal sentience and agency. I don’t think any reader can ever forget a voice like Sue the dingo’s — wise and obscene in equal measure. A triumph.
Ceridwen Dovey
Wow! The Animals in That Country is refreshingly original and totally bonkers, and I read it at a furious pace. Jean Bennett is one of the most memorable characters I’ve read in a long time. I loved her brass and her messiness, and when the end of times comes, most of us will be lucky to have half her loyalty and determination. The story is hugely imaginative and fully realised, with McKay in total control of her creative vision. She explores the potential of human/nonhuman communication, and the result is as poetic as it is surprising. A great debut novel.
Alison Huber, Book Division Manager Readings
This novel is one wild ride, from beginning to end. I loved Jean’s character — middle-aged, flawed, and foul-mouthed — desperately trying to keep herself together and to hold on to the family she has left. Sue the dingo is a glorious character, full of wild instinct yet all-knowing about the humans she encounters. This is one of the most unique, quirky stories I’ve read in a long time and a telling insight into how we see and relate to native wildlife. Laura Jean McKay’s is a fresh, innovative voice with a story that grabs you by the muzzle, leading you on an apocalyptic trip that you won’t forget easily.
Jenny Barry, Booksplus Bathurst
This book drips with angst and excitement … a truly original story teeming with intrigue.
Suzie Bull, Farrells Bookshop, ABIA Bookseller of the Year 2018
Reminiscent of Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, McKay offers an exciting and necessary new voice in Australian fiction. We’ve all wished we could talk to animals, but McKay teaches us that we really should be careful what we wish for. By turns bizarre and profound, this is a striking debut.
Jaclyn Crupi, Hill of Content Bookshop
In this warm, wild, and irreverent debut, Laura Jean McKay takes us into the minds of animals to reveal the complexity of their lives. The Animals in That Country avoids the trap of anthropomorphism, showing instead the absurd, intense, and shifting bonds between humans and animals.
Mireille Juchau, author of The World Without Us
Deliriously strange, blackly hilarious, and completely exhilarating, The Animals In That Country is a wonderful debut from a genuinely original and exciting new voice.
James Bradley
Engrossing, subversive, and surprisingly profound, The Animals in That Country does something only the best fiction can do: it has the power to skew the reader’s perspective on the world. This story will stay with me for a long time, and its protagonist, Jean Bennett, will be with me even longer.
J.P. Pomare
McKay is a master at building tension through sparse, abrupt language that mirrors Jean’s decades of alcohol abuse, and the excellent world-building is enhanced by the exquisite chemistry between Jean and her canine companion Sue. Visceral and discombobulating yet tender, The Animals in That Country will appeal to readers who enjoyed the animal-led stories in Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, and the foreboding road trip in Romy Ash’s Floundering.
Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing
You know when you finish a book and you know that book will occupy your mind for a long time? The Animals in That Country is one of those. I haven’t read a book like it and I don’t think I will again ... The speech is almost poetic, full of metaphors and stunted syntax that (initially) confounds those hearing it ... This book is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and soul-crushingly depressing, in a way I can only describe as reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. FIVE STARS
Max Lewis, Good Reading
If you read The Animals in That Country, it will be the wildest ride you take all year.
Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper
Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.
Arts Review
The writing is vibrant, energetic and refreshing, and the narrative leaps off the page ... a wild, engaging ride for readers.
Karen Viggers, The Australian
Laura Jean McKay, an expert in animal communication, has her animals speaking in hallucinogenic haikus — it’s disturbing but compelling, and somehow totally believable. I loved every bizarre, unexpected moment.
Corinna Hente, Herald Sun
An incredible achievement in storytelling, and absolutely worth your time ... one of the best Australian novels of the year.
Nicholas Wasiliev, Booktopia
Eerily prescient … The Animals in That Country offers a timely take on the fraught ways animals feature in our lives, and how devastating it would be if we heard what they had to say. FIVE STARS
Erin Stewart, ArtsHub
This is a work of not only remarkable linguistic skill but also one that brilliantly captures our relationship with the inhabitants of this wild world. FOUR STARS
Mitchell Jordan, The Big Issue
The genius stroke of The Animals in That Country is the preternatural ‘body talk’ of its animals ... an affecting book, one that gets remarkably close to the unknowable wildness of animal sentience.
Jack Callil, The Age
A standout debut novel of 2020 ... Original, hugely entertaining and superbly crafted, this is one heck of a road-trip novel, whose timing and insights into human behaviour in a crisis could not be more prescient.
Alison Huber, Readings Booksellers
Strikingly original ... It’s a tale that is at turns bizarre and surprisingly affecting, populated by a cast of richly idiosyncratic characters and posing timely questions about the ways we relate both to animals and to each other.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West
This is a beguiling, thought-provoking story penned with passion, intricate animals knowledge and great creativity ... Disturbing, challenging and addictive, the book prompts you to wonder about what animals are really thinking.
Sue Wallace, The Weekly Times
McKay is a master of voice-driven narrative. I never thought a substance-abusing grandmother was just who I needed to take me on an apocalyptic road trip — and that long after I gulped the book down, I'd be haunted by the words of a dingo called Sue.
Sofija Stefanovic, author of Miss Ex-Yugoslavia
This is an absorbing and affecting book, and one to which I’m able to pay the highest compliment: that, in the days after finishing it, the world felt different to me, its animals not speaking but not silent either.
Ben Brooker, Australian Book Review
The beauty of this book is that it never quite goes where the reader expects it to go. McKay zigs when the reader expects her to zag. And the whole builds to a kind of slow-moving climax ... The Animals in That Country takes an intriguing premise and absolutely runs with it. While delivering one of the strangest road trips ever, McKay considers the nature of family, the human response to the unknown and our relationship with the animals kingdom, among other things.
Robert Goodman, The Blurb
McKay has written a searing dystopian critique of our relationship with the natural world … Through poetic projections of what the animals might say if they could, McKay highlights our limited capacity to communicate with language, and our human-centric view of the natural order … Earthy, visceral, at-times obscene and all-too-real, The Animals In That Country is nevertheless compelling and oddly buoying … McKay is a masterful storyteller, and her talent truly shines in this quest for family and belonging.
Sheree Strange, Primer
As we grapple with a worldwide pandemic, Australian author McKay’s novel is incredibly timely and feels all the more real for it … filled with humour, optimism, and grace: a wild ride worth taking. An eye-opening glimpse into a world that’s turned upside down and eventually becomes its own version of whole.
Carol Gladstein, Booklist
[A] compelling and haunting debut … Scattered with dark humour and driven by a compelling plot, The Animals in That Country is an outstanding and timely examination of human morality. It will change the way you view both animals and the world.
Chloë Cooper, Audrey Magazine
Part pandemic novel and part beast fable, McKay’s novel, which takes its title from a Margaret Atwood poem, imagines a disease that causes humans to understand animal language, down to the lowliest insect. Acerbic wildlife guide Jean and a dingo named Sue set off through the Australian Outback in pursuit of the former’s son, who has absconded south after losing his mind, like so many others, due to the new voices that now seemingly occupy every space.
Publishers Weekly, ‘Going Viral: New Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020’
Disturbingly timely, The Animals In That Country chronicles the journey of one no-bullshit woman and her half-wild dingo as they race against a deadly pandemic. Jean is brilliantly crafted — unapologetically rough and yet filled with hidden vulnerability. McKay's tale pulled me in with its entertaining nature then dragged me under with its profound nuance.
Laura Graveline, Brazos Bookstore
Surprising and surprisingly-convincing characters, and a well-realised, inventive premise.
Kate Evans, ABC News
A gritty and innovative wonder about an animal-borne virus (yep) that cracks opens channels between interspecies communication. The result is a raucous fever dream of a road story, evocative of Kenneth Cook, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ceridwen Dovey – but ultimately, McKay defies comparison.
Josephine Rowe
A timely dystopian novel in which a dangerous flu sweeps across Australia, giving those infected the power to speak with animals, with dark, disturbing results.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
A wildly inventive dystopian adventure … Both a hell of a ride and a revealing thought experiment about our place in the natural world.
Dan Kois, Slate
The Animals in That Country is an uncanny book, in no small part because it was released in March and has a pandemic is at its centre … McKay’s book is madcap and poetic by turns; concerned about exactly what constitutes the relationships between humans and animals, and how we see each other and interact in this world we share.
Fiona Wright, The Guardian
This book changed the way I look at the relationship between humans and animals, and it has one of the most wonderful dingo protagonists in Sue.
Krissy Kneen, Broadsheet
Bold and strikingly inventive.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West Australian
The novel’s main subject is the absurdity of the disconnect between politicians’ public announcements and the reality of events. Fans of Martin McKenzie-Murray’s journalism will have been looking forward to this book, and there are some clever insights and some laughs to be had.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
McKay does not offer us anthropomorphised cartoons, but a vocabulary formed by scent and breath … As the novel progresses, and more animals are introduced, it becomes impossible not to believe in McKay’s creative choices. In the arrangement and the rhythms and the personalities of each animal she translates, it is obvious McKay withheld nothing … McKay has not written a white lie about how lovely it would be to speak with a dog. Instead, she has asked that necessary, and uncomfortable question: Do we really want to know what the rest of the planet thinks of us?
Necessary Fiction
It was an absorbing read. Really inventive storytelling.
Kate Miller-Heidke, Sydney Morning Herald
The Animals in that Country is that rare thing: an intellectually ambitious, formally innovative Australian novel that is accessible to a broad readership. It’s also wonderfully macabre … This is a work of fiction utterly capable of swaying the cultural imaginary … well-researched, impeccably crafted, and, above all, intelligent.
Julienne van Loon, The Conversation
Amazing.
Pip Adam, Stuff
Ceridwen Dovey
Wow! The Animals in That Country is refreshingly original and totally bonkers, and I read it at a furious pace. Jean Bennett is one of the most memorable characters I’ve read in a long time. I loved her brass and her messiness, and when the end of times comes, most of us will be lucky to have half her loyalty and determination. The story is hugely imaginative and fully realised, with McKay in total control of her creative vision. She explores the potential of human/nonhuman communication, and the result is as poetic as it is surprising. A great debut novel.
Alison Huber, Book Division Manager Readings
This novel is one wild ride, from beginning to end. I loved Jean’s character — middle-aged, flawed, and foul-mouthed — desperately trying to keep herself together and to hold on to the family she has left. Sue the dingo is a glorious character, full of wild instinct yet all-knowing about the humans she encounters. This is one of the most unique, quirky stories I’ve read in a long time and a telling insight into how we see and relate to native wildlife. Laura Jean McKay’s is a fresh, innovative voice with a story that grabs you by the muzzle, leading you on an apocalyptic trip that you won’t forget easily.
Jenny Barry, Booksplus Bathurst
This book drips with angst and excitement … a truly original story teeming with intrigue.
Suzie Bull, Farrells Bookshop, ABIA Bookseller of the Year 2018
Reminiscent of Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, McKay offers an exciting and necessary new voice in Australian fiction. We’ve all wished we could talk to animals, but McKay teaches us that we really should be careful what we wish for. By turns bizarre and profound, this is a striking debut.
Jaclyn Crupi, Hill of Content Bookshop
In this warm, wild, and irreverent debut, Laura Jean McKay takes us into the minds of animals to reveal the complexity of their lives. The Animals in That Country avoids the trap of anthropomorphism, showing instead the absurd, intense, and shifting bonds between humans and animals.
Mireille Juchau, author of The World Without Us
Deliriously strange, blackly hilarious, and completely exhilarating, The Animals In That Country is a wonderful debut from a genuinely original and exciting new voice.
James Bradley
Engrossing, subversive, and surprisingly profound, The Animals in That Country does something only the best fiction can do: it has the power to skew the reader’s perspective on the world. This story will stay with me for a long time, and its protagonist, Jean Bennett, will be with me even longer.
J.P. Pomare
McKay is a master at building tension through sparse, abrupt language that mirrors Jean’s decades of alcohol abuse, and the excellent world-building is enhanced by the exquisite chemistry between Jean and her canine companion Sue. Visceral and discombobulating yet tender, The Animals in That Country will appeal to readers who enjoyed the animal-led stories in Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals, and the foreboding road trip in Romy Ash’s Floundering.
Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing
You know when you finish a book and you know that book will occupy your mind for a long time? The Animals in That Country is one of those. I haven’t read a book like it and I don’t think I will again ... The speech is almost poetic, full of metaphors and stunted syntax that (initially) confounds those hearing it ... This book is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and soul-crushingly depressing, in a way I can only describe as reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. FIVE STARS
Max Lewis, Good Reading
If you read The Animals in That Country, it will be the wildest ride you take all year.
Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper
Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.
Arts Review
The writing is vibrant, energetic and refreshing, and the narrative leaps off the page ... a wild, engaging ride for readers.
Karen Viggers, The Australian
Laura Jean McKay, an expert in animal communication, has her animals speaking in hallucinogenic haikus — it’s disturbing but compelling, and somehow totally believable. I loved every bizarre, unexpected moment.
Corinna Hente, Herald Sun
An incredible achievement in storytelling, and absolutely worth your time ... one of the best Australian novels of the year.
Nicholas Wasiliev, Booktopia
Eerily prescient … The Animals in That Country offers a timely take on the fraught ways animals feature in our lives, and how devastating it would be if we heard what they had to say. FIVE STARS
Erin Stewart, ArtsHub
This is a work of not only remarkable linguistic skill but also one that brilliantly captures our relationship with the inhabitants of this wild world. FOUR STARS
Mitchell Jordan, The Big Issue
The genius stroke of The Animals in That Country is the preternatural ‘body talk’ of its animals ... an affecting book, one that gets remarkably close to the unknowable wildness of animal sentience.
Jack Callil, The Age
A standout debut novel of 2020 ... Original, hugely entertaining and superbly crafted, this is one heck of a road-trip novel, whose timing and insights into human behaviour in a crisis could not be more prescient.
Alison Huber, Readings Booksellers
Strikingly original ... It’s a tale that is at turns bizarre and surprisingly affecting, populated by a cast of richly idiosyncratic characters and posing timely questions about the ways we relate both to animals and to each other.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West
This is a beguiling, thought-provoking story penned with passion, intricate animals knowledge and great creativity ... Disturbing, challenging and addictive, the book prompts you to wonder about what animals are really thinking.
Sue Wallace, The Weekly Times
McKay is a master of voice-driven narrative. I never thought a substance-abusing grandmother was just who I needed to take me on an apocalyptic road trip — and that long after I gulped the book down, I'd be haunted by the words of a dingo called Sue.
Sofija Stefanovic, author of Miss Ex-Yugoslavia
This is an absorbing and affecting book, and one to which I’m able to pay the highest compliment: that, in the days after finishing it, the world felt different to me, its animals not speaking but not silent either.
Ben Brooker, Australian Book Review
The beauty of this book is that it never quite goes where the reader expects it to go. McKay zigs when the reader expects her to zag. And the whole builds to a kind of slow-moving climax ... The Animals in That Country takes an intriguing premise and absolutely runs with it. While delivering one of the strangest road trips ever, McKay considers the nature of family, the human response to the unknown and our relationship with the animals kingdom, among other things.
Robert Goodman, The Blurb
McKay has written a searing dystopian critique of our relationship with the natural world … Through poetic projections of what the animals might say if they could, McKay highlights our limited capacity to communicate with language, and our human-centric view of the natural order … Earthy, visceral, at-times obscene and all-too-real, The Animals In That Country is nevertheless compelling and oddly buoying … McKay is a masterful storyteller, and her talent truly shines in this quest for family and belonging.
Sheree Strange, Primer
As we grapple with a worldwide pandemic, Australian author McKay’s novel is incredibly timely and feels all the more real for it … filled with humour, optimism, and grace: a wild ride worth taking. An eye-opening glimpse into a world that’s turned upside down and eventually becomes its own version of whole.
Carol Gladstein, Booklist
[A] compelling and haunting debut … Scattered with dark humour and driven by a compelling plot, The Animals in That Country is an outstanding and timely examination of human morality. It will change the way you view both animals and the world.
Chloë Cooper, Audrey Magazine
Part pandemic novel and part beast fable, McKay’s novel, which takes its title from a Margaret Atwood poem, imagines a disease that causes humans to understand animal language, down to the lowliest insect. Acerbic wildlife guide Jean and a dingo named Sue set off through the Australian Outback in pursuit of the former’s son, who has absconded south after losing his mind, like so many others, due to the new voices that now seemingly occupy every space.
Publishers Weekly, ‘Going Viral: New Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020’
Disturbingly timely, The Animals In That Country chronicles the journey of one no-bullshit woman and her half-wild dingo as they race against a deadly pandemic. Jean is brilliantly crafted — unapologetically rough and yet filled with hidden vulnerability. McKay's tale pulled me in with its entertaining nature then dragged me under with its profound nuance.
Laura Graveline, Brazos Bookstore
Surprising and surprisingly-convincing characters, and a well-realised, inventive premise.
Kate Evans, ABC News
A gritty and innovative wonder about an animal-borne virus (yep) that cracks opens channels between interspecies communication. The result is a raucous fever dream of a road story, evocative of Kenneth Cook, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ceridwen Dovey – but ultimately, McKay defies comparison.
Josephine Rowe
A timely dystopian novel in which a dangerous flu sweeps across Australia, giving those infected the power to speak with animals, with dark, disturbing results.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
A wildly inventive dystopian adventure … Both a hell of a ride and a revealing thought experiment about our place in the natural world.
Dan Kois, Slate
The Animals in That Country is an uncanny book, in no small part because it was released in March and has a pandemic is at its centre … McKay’s book is madcap and poetic by turns; concerned about exactly what constitutes the relationships between humans and animals, and how we see each other and interact in this world we share.
Fiona Wright, The Guardian
This book changed the way I look at the relationship between humans and animals, and it has one of the most wonderful dingo protagonists in Sue.
Krissy Kneen, Broadsheet
Bold and strikingly inventive.
Gemma Nisbet, The Weekend West Australian
The novel’s main subject is the absurdity of the disconnect between politicians’ public announcements and the reality of events. Fans of Martin McKenzie-Murray’s journalism will have been looking forward to this book, and there are some clever insights and some laughs to be had.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
McKay does not offer us anthropomorphised cartoons, but a vocabulary formed by scent and breath … As the novel progresses, and more animals are introduced, it becomes impossible not to believe in McKay’s creative choices. In the arrangement and the rhythms and the personalities of each animal she translates, it is obvious McKay withheld nothing … McKay has not written a white lie about how lovely it would be to speak with a dog. Instead, she has asked that necessary, and uncomfortable question: Do we really want to know what the rest of the planet thinks of us?
Necessary Fiction
It was an absorbing read. Really inventive storytelling.
Kate Miller-Heidke, Sydney Morning Herald
The Animals in that Country is that rare thing: an intellectually ambitious, formally innovative Australian novel that is accessible to a broad readership. It’s also wonderfully macabre … This is a work of fiction utterly capable of swaying the cultural imaginary … well-researched, impeccably crafted, and, above all, intelligent.
Julienne van Loon, The Conversation
Amazing.
Pip Adam, Stuff
October 6, 2020
Laura Jean McKay has a PhD in literary animal studies from the University of Melbourne and serves as an animal expert and presenter on Australia’s ABC radio show Animal Sound Safari. Pair her academic background with the fact that this second book of hers shares a title with a Margaret Atwood poetry collection and you’ll have some idea of what to expect here: mysterious but mostly believable speculative fiction that hinges on human communication with animals.
Jean Bennett isn’t your average grandma: a wise-cracking alcoholic, she drives the tourist train through the Australian wildlife park her daughter-in-law manages but wishes she could be a fully fledged ranger. Her ex-husband, Graham, left her and went down south, and eventually their only son Lee did the same. Now all Jean has left is Kim, her six-year-old granddaughter. Jean entertains Kim by imagining voices for the park’s animals. This no longer seems like a game, though, when news filters through of the “zooflu,” which has hit epidemic levels and has as a main symptom the ability to understand what animals say.
When the park closes to the public, the staff members are stranded on site. A clandestine visitor brings zooflu – before long, everyone is infected – and kidnaps Kim. Jean steals a camper van and takes Sue the dingo along to help her find her granddaughter. As they head towards the ocean, the full scale of the epidemic becomes evident. Pets and livestock are running wild, having been released by frightened owners. Jean stops at service stations and pubs to hear the latest news and ask if anyone has seen Kim. People are suspicious of Sue. “There’s a new normal now,” a bus driver tells her. “And around here, not wearing a mask means you’ve gone animal. I’d put on my protective if I was you. Put that mutt in a cage.”
It was uncanny reading this in the midst of a pandemic, but the specifics of McKay’s novel are hard to grasp and much bleaker than most of us are experiencing during COVID-19. Jean learns that some are so tortured by animal voices – starting with mammals, proceeding to birds, and in severe cases including insects – that they undergo amateur trepanning via a drill to the skull.
Yet Jean’s experience of animal language seems quaint or amusing. The creatures’ voices aren’t audible, necessary, but a combination of smells, noises and body language. The animals’ statements are blunt and literal, mostly concerned with food and sex. For a long time, they seem like pure nonsense, but gradually they resemble a sort of rough poetry, split at random into short lines in bold type. Here’s one example from Sue:
My front end
takes the food
quality.
Muzzle
for the Queen
(Yesterday).
(Sue usually calls Jean “Queen” or “Mother,” showing that she respects her authority, and “Yesterday” is frequently used to suggest a primitive sense of the past or of an older person.)
As entertaining a protagonist as Jean is, I lost interest in her road trip. The communication with animals was neither as clear-cut nor as profound as I’d hoped for. Dystopian novels may have increased resonance at this time, but they are often unsatisfying. If you focus on the journey into the wilderness and don’t mind a sudden ending, you may find this a worthwhile follow-up to Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
A shortened version was originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck. (I read a proof copy for a Nudge review, but it’s never shown up on their website.)
Jean Bennett isn’t your average grandma: a wise-cracking alcoholic, she drives the tourist train through the Australian wildlife park her daughter-in-law manages but wishes she could be a fully fledged ranger. Her ex-husband, Graham, left her and went down south, and eventually their only son Lee did the same. Now all Jean has left is Kim, her six-year-old granddaughter. Jean entertains Kim by imagining voices for the park’s animals. This no longer seems like a game, though, when news filters through of the “zooflu,” which has hit epidemic levels and has as a main symptom the ability to understand what animals say.
When the park closes to the public, the staff members are stranded on site. A clandestine visitor brings zooflu – before long, everyone is infected – and kidnaps Kim. Jean steals a camper van and takes Sue the dingo along to help her find her granddaughter. As they head towards the ocean, the full scale of the epidemic becomes evident. Pets and livestock are running wild, having been released by frightened owners. Jean stops at service stations and pubs to hear the latest news and ask if anyone has seen Kim. People are suspicious of Sue. “There’s a new normal now,” a bus driver tells her. “And around here, not wearing a mask means you’ve gone animal. I’d put on my protective if I was you. Put that mutt in a cage.”
It was uncanny reading this in the midst of a pandemic, but the specifics of McKay’s novel are hard to grasp and much bleaker than most of us are experiencing during COVID-19. Jean learns that some are so tortured by animal voices – starting with mammals, proceeding to birds, and in severe cases including insects – that they undergo amateur trepanning via a drill to the skull.
Yet Jean’s experience of animal language seems quaint or amusing. The creatures’ voices aren’t audible, necessary, but a combination of smells, noises and body language. The animals’ statements are blunt and literal, mostly concerned with food and sex. For a long time, they seem like pure nonsense, but gradually they resemble a sort of rough poetry, split at random into short lines in bold type. Here’s one example from Sue:
My front end
takes the food
quality.
Muzzle
for the Queen
(Yesterday).
(Sue usually calls Jean “Queen” or “Mother,” showing that she respects her authority, and “Yesterday” is frequently used to suggest a primitive sense of the past or of an older person.)
As entertaining a protagonist as Jean is, I lost interest in her road trip. The communication with animals was neither as clear-cut nor as profound as I’d hoped for. Dystopian novels may have increased resonance at this time, but they are often unsatisfying. If you focus on the journey into the wilderness and don’t mind a sudden ending, you may find this a worthwhile follow-up to Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
A shortened version was originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck. (I read a proof copy for a Nudge review, but it’s never shown up on their website.)
May 24, 2020
‘They’re still going on about that superflu on the radio.’
Jean Bennett is a tough middle-aged woman who works as a guide at a wildlife park in the Australian outback. She likes a few drinks (except when she’s looking after her granddaughter Kimberley) and she hopes, one day, to be a fully-fledged ranger. Jean likes the animals and talks to all of them, but a young dingo called Sue is her favourite. Kimberley’s mother, Angela, manages the park.
Life is disrupted. There’s a pandemic sweeping the country: called ‘zooflu’, it is no ordinary flu. One of the first symptoms is that victims begin to hear the animals speaking. First it is just the mammals, but as the flu progresses, they hear birds and insects. A cacophony of unstoppable voices: people are overwhelmed.
Jean’s son, Lee, arrives at the park. He’s infected, he takes Kimberley and heads south. Jean follows him, taking Sue the dingo with her.
What follows is a surreal road trip. Jean can make sense (mostly) of what Sue says but most people she meets are terrified, many have been driven insane. Will Jean find Kimberley and Lee? Is Sue helping her or hindering her?
It is easy to become lost in this novel: trying to make sense of what the animals are saying while trying to understand the human reactions. The human view of the world is challenged: even where individuals think they understand the animals. We humans make a lot of assumptions, and once those assumptions are challenged, our thin veneer of civilization is disrupted.
I’ve never read a novel quite like this. Ms McKay manages to steer this quite unique story through some challenging territory. And, when I could not make sense of all of it, when I became discombobulated, I thought that would probably be how it would feel if I could hear the voices of animals.
I am not entirely sure how Ms McKay makes this story work so well, but it does. It is simultaneously clever and disturbing. What an impressive novel!
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Scribe UK for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Jean Bennett is a tough middle-aged woman who works as a guide at a wildlife park in the Australian outback. She likes a few drinks (except when she’s looking after her granddaughter Kimberley) and she hopes, one day, to be a fully-fledged ranger. Jean likes the animals and talks to all of them, but a young dingo called Sue is her favourite. Kimberley’s mother, Angela, manages the park.
Life is disrupted. There’s a pandemic sweeping the country: called ‘zooflu’, it is no ordinary flu. One of the first symptoms is that victims begin to hear the animals speaking. First it is just the mammals, but as the flu progresses, they hear birds and insects. A cacophony of unstoppable voices: people are overwhelmed.
Jean’s son, Lee, arrives at the park. He’s infected, he takes Kimberley and heads south. Jean follows him, taking Sue the dingo with her.
What follows is a surreal road trip. Jean can make sense (mostly) of what Sue says but most people she meets are terrified, many have been driven insane. Will Jean find Kimberley and Lee? Is Sue helping her or hindering her?
It is easy to become lost in this novel: trying to make sense of what the animals are saying while trying to understand the human reactions. The human view of the world is challenged: even where individuals think they understand the animals. We humans make a lot of assumptions, and once those assumptions are challenged, our thin veneer of civilization is disrupted.
I’ve never read a novel quite like this. Ms McKay manages to steer this quite unique story through some challenging territory. And, when I could not make sense of all of it, when I became discombobulated, I thought that would probably be how it would feel if I could hear the voices of animals.
I am not entirely sure how Ms McKay makes this story work so well, but it does. It is simultaneously clever and disturbing. What an impressive novel!
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Scribe UK for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Read
March 12, 2021DNF @38%
Not for me. Review to follow
Not for me. Review to follow
December 29, 2019
4.5 stars - A very exciting debut. Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy meets Lucy Treloar's Wolfe Island. Full review to follow.
April 25, 2020
(#gifted @scribe_uk) I was feeling brave (read: crazy) enough to read a book about a viral flu pandemic during lockdown, and I'm happy to say the courage/stupidity paid off! The Animals in That Country is an original, creative, at times incredibly frustrating debut, but that frustration is worth it.
.
Set in Australia (I should read more books set in Australia, especially if the characters are like Jean), in a future where ZooFlu is sweeping the country, a viral phenomenon that allows communication between humans and animals. But if you think this entails you finally finding out all the cute things your dog thinks, you are mistaken. We hear from bloodthirsty rats, ominous crows, darkly playful crocodiles, and of course, Sue. Sue the Dingo, companion to Jean for much of this novel, both fiercely protective and just plain fierce.
.
Jean is a human, although just barely clinging on. She's old, grizzled, foul-mouthed and with a strong dependency on the drink. An unlikely hero, and one you will surely not forget in a hurry. The language McKay uses to denote the communication between humans and animals is quirky, bold, and often nonsensical at first. This is what frustrated me, but it also gives the novel its grimness - this is no Disney shit.
.
Even if I did get lost a few times, I always got pulled back into the narrative, which sees Jean travelling cross-country with Sue in search of her granddaughter, really the only human Jean gives a shit about - and I loved their relationship. At times it was oddly eerie to be lost in a story where the world is falling to pieces, hostility on the rise, supermarket shelves empty... only to come back to reality and realise a lot of it is mirrored in our current situation.
.
But this book is sufficiently strange and different enough to not exacerbate my current anxieties - and it's not out until June so even if you're feeling iffy about pandemic fiction right now, we've got a few months to hopefully get back to some sense of normality. This is a creative and bold debut with unforgettable characters that I definitely recommend!
.
Set in Australia (I should read more books set in Australia, especially if the characters are like Jean), in a future where ZooFlu is sweeping the country, a viral phenomenon that allows communication between humans and animals. But if you think this entails you finally finding out all the cute things your dog thinks, you are mistaken. We hear from bloodthirsty rats, ominous crows, darkly playful crocodiles, and of course, Sue. Sue the Dingo, companion to Jean for much of this novel, both fiercely protective and just plain fierce.
.
Jean is a human, although just barely clinging on. She's old, grizzled, foul-mouthed and with a strong dependency on the drink. An unlikely hero, and one you will surely not forget in a hurry. The language McKay uses to denote the communication between humans and animals is quirky, bold, and often nonsensical at first. This is what frustrated me, but it also gives the novel its grimness - this is no Disney shit.
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Even if I did get lost a few times, I always got pulled back into the narrative, which sees Jean travelling cross-country with Sue in search of her granddaughter, really the only human Jean gives a shit about - and I loved their relationship. At times it was oddly eerie to be lost in a story where the world is falling to pieces, hostility on the rise, supermarket shelves empty... only to come back to reality and realise a lot of it is mirrored in our current situation.
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But this book is sufficiently strange and different enough to not exacerbate my current anxieties - and it's not out until June so even if you're feeling iffy about pandemic fiction right now, we've got a few months to hopefully get back to some sense of normality. This is a creative and bold debut with unforgettable characters that I definitely recommend!
July 31, 2022
The premise is obviously terrific – a pandemic sweeps the globe that enables humans to understand the communications of non-human animals. The rendering of the animals' "speech" is pretty terrific too – puzzling, poetic, elliptical and a bit loopy.
But a great premise by itself isn't enough to make for a really great read.
The novel has two weaknesses.
The first is the story. The meat of the prose is rich and strange. But the skeleton on which it hangs is a family melodrama that wouldn't be out of place in any soap. What's more, the story ends before the novel does: the last 50 pages drag.
The second is the prose itself. The novel is in the first person, and the narrator is a foul-mouthed, middle-aged woman who's drunk a lot of the time. Her dialogue with the other characters (human or otherwise) is always vivid and believable. Her internal monologue, not so much.
I do believe Jean would say . I don't believe she would say "she's muttering to the nuclear codes charting her womb", because I don't believe anyone would say that (not even to themselves). The author should either have composed all her poetic prose in the third person or left the poetry to the bloody dingoes (as Jean might believably have said).
So in the end, a great premise petered out into a bit of a one-trick pony. To be fair, it was a good trick (including the talking pony). But it wasn't quite enough.
But a great premise by itself isn't enough to make for a really great read.
The novel has two weaknesses.
The first is the story. The meat of the prose is rich and strange. But the skeleton on which it hangs is a family melodrama that wouldn't be out of place in any soap. What's more, the story ends before the novel does: the last 50 pages drag.
The second is the prose itself. The novel is in the first person, and the narrator is a foul-mouthed, middle-aged woman who's drunk a lot of the time. Her dialogue with the other characters (human or otherwise) is always vivid and believable. Her internal monologue, not so much.
I do believe Jean would say . I don't believe she would say "she's muttering to the nuclear codes charting her womb", because I don't believe anyone would say that (not even to themselves). The author should either have composed all her poetic prose in the third person or left the poetry to the bloody dingoes (as Jean might believably have said).
So in the end, a great premise petered out into a bit of a one-trick pony. To be fair, it was a good trick (including the talking pony). But it wasn't quite enough.
December 18, 2020
3.5 rounded down
A rollicking ride, The Animals in That Country is a pre-IRL pandemic pandemic tale. Are you still with me?! If so: this pandemic is one which, once infected with the flu-like illness, the sick are able to hear and speak to animals. I know many will likely want to avoid this type of story during an actual global epidemic (me included for the most part), but I found this to be a unique and broadly impressive take on the theme.
Our protagonist, Jean, works as a tour guide at an outback wildlife park. She has a soft spot for a dingo named Sue which lives in the park, and spends her time looking after her granddaughter, Kimberly. Early in the pandemic Kimberly's estranged father (Jean's son), Lee, comes to the park and becomes infected before taking off with Kimberly. The rest of the novel follows Jean and Sue's journey to find Kimberly and bring her back to safety.
As mentioned, McKay handles the theme adeptly, and the pacing of the book meant the novel makes for a fast-paced read. I'd check out more of McKay's writing on the strength of this. Recommended if you like books with flawed protagonists and speculative themes.
Thank you Netgalley and Scribe UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
A rollicking ride, The Animals in That Country is a pre-IRL pandemic pandemic tale. Are you still with me?! If so: this pandemic is one which, once infected with the flu-like illness, the sick are able to hear and speak to animals. I know many will likely want to avoid this type of story during an actual global epidemic (me included for the most part), but I found this to be a unique and broadly impressive take on the theme.
Our protagonist, Jean, works as a tour guide at an outback wildlife park. She has a soft spot for a dingo named Sue which lives in the park, and spends her time looking after her granddaughter, Kimberly. Early in the pandemic Kimberly's estranged father (Jean's son), Lee, comes to the park and becomes infected before taking off with Kimberly. The rest of the novel follows Jean and Sue's journey to find Kimberly and bring her back to safety.
As mentioned, McKay handles the theme adeptly, and the pacing of the book meant the novel makes for a fast-paced read. I'd check out more of McKay's writing on the strength of this. Recommended if you like books with flawed protagonists and speculative themes.
Thank you Netgalley and Scribe UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
March 3, 2021
One of the most interesting and engrossing books I've read in ages.
A virus, which enables the victims to understand animals, their thoughts and voices. It sounds cool. But it properly isn't. Their quests for food, the way that they think about us humans. It is horrible and fascinating. This is Jean's story. She is the almost always drunk a little bit, overstepping her boundaries, employee of the wild animal park which her daughter manages. She takes care of Kim, her granddaughter. She has a casual relationship based on booze with one of the other staff. Her world is about the relationships she has with Kim and the animals she feeds. She loves the dingo matriarch and this will be what ultimately saves her. Her rotten son puts her in the most terrible position. He takes Kim, and Jean has to find her. It is a quest which will almost drive her to the brink of sanity.
Gosh I loved this, it was so interesting. A dystopia that shakes the genre all about. Jean is fabulous, she is a gnarly soul. She loves so deeply and she is such a pain in the arse.
I was invested from the very first lines.
A virus, which enables the victims to understand animals, their thoughts and voices. It sounds cool. But it properly isn't. Their quests for food, the way that they think about us humans. It is horrible and fascinating. This is Jean's story. She is the almost always drunk a little bit, overstepping her boundaries, employee of the wild animal park which her daughter manages. She takes care of Kim, her granddaughter. She has a casual relationship based on booze with one of the other staff. Her world is about the relationships she has with Kim and the animals she feeds. She loves the dingo matriarch and this will be what ultimately saves her. Her rotten son puts her in the most terrible position. He takes Kim, and Jean has to find her. It is a quest which will almost drive her to the brink of sanity.
Gosh I loved this, it was so interesting. A dystopia that shakes the genre all about. Jean is fabulous, she is a gnarly soul. She loves so deeply and she is such a pain in the arse.
I was invested from the very first lines.
May 27, 2021
This is a weird book to rate and review, because my response to it shifted at different points. I found The Animals in That Country more compelling during the first half, perhaps because the storytelling is more straightforward and we see Jean struggling in her professional and personal lives. I liked having such an unlikeable character because Jean isn't just her bad decisions: we get to see her in both moments of weakness and strength, and she felt real. McKay also does a wonderful job at building up the panic surrounding the zoo flu, and it was interesting to see how certain characters succumbed to it more quickly than others. The traveling aspect of the novel—Jean and the dingo Sue going in search of Jean's son and granddaughter—didn't actually take me anywhere, oddly enough. The second half just felt a bit aimless. And while I appreciate the author's unusual approach to language and the risks she took with her prose, the animal communications were too abstract most of the time. That, along with the abrupt and unsatisfying ending, brought down the book.
So: fabulous premise, solid start, then it all crept downhill.
So: fabulous premise, solid start, then it all crept downhill.
November 2, 2021
This is a weird SF, where fantastic takes backstage to a personal story. This book was acclaimed by several minor, but still important award selections, the most well known of which is Arthur C. Clarke Award (2021), as well as several other even if it wasn’t nominated for Hugo or Nebula.
The story takes place in Australia during the strange pandemic (I guess pandemics will be a fad for some time in SFF). The protagonist is a woman in her 50s, named Jean Bennett. She works as a guide in an animal park, with her divorced (therefore, former?) daughter-in-law, drinking and smoking, caring for animals both in the park and in own backyard, and waiting for one day in a week, when her granddaughter Kimberly age six stays with her. One of their usual games is to say, what this or than animal is saying, like
‘The dingo. What did she say to you?’
The whole lot of them is listening, so I get the mic out. Make my voice high and feathery, like a wild dog tail. ‘She said, “Jeanie-girl: you’re my best friend”.’
The strange disease with a flu-like symptoms allows people to understand what the animals around them are not even ‘saying’ but ‘thinking’, and it is notably different from Dr. Dolittle kind of ‘talk/thought’, which makes it hardly more understandable. For example, in their travel the protagonist meets a wagon with pigs from a farm and her dingo ‘says’:
Piglet.
Outside it
pops. Inside
it slithers.
This kind of constant animal noise which cannot be turned off, drives people mad. Or worse – gives them unrealistically high hopes. One of such is Jean’s son, Kimberly’s father – who takes his daughter without any prior agreement to the ocean, to listen to the whales. And Jean with a dingo bitch try to catch him up before Kimberly’s mother is aware of a ‘kidnapping’. They ride across the country seeing how traumatic a new understanding can be.
It is a heart wrenching story, not the kind I usually read. I cannot say that I plan to read more by her, even if the author is talented.
The title comes from poem by Margaret Atwood, which is partially printed at the start:
In that country the animals
have the faces of people:
the ceremonial
cats possessing the streets
the fox run
politely to earth, the huntsmen
standing around him, fixed
in their tapestry of manners
the bull, embroidered
with blood and given
an elegant death, trumpets, his name
stamped on him, heraldic brand
because
(when he rolled
on the sand, sword in his heart, the teeth
in his blue mouth were human)
he is really a man
even the wolves, holding resonant
conversations in their
forests thickened with legend.
In this country the animals
have the faces of
animals.
Their eyes
flash once in car headlights
and are gone.
Their deaths are not elegant.
They have the faces of
no-one.
The story takes place in Australia during the strange pandemic (I guess pandemics will be a fad for some time in SFF). The protagonist is a woman in her 50s, named Jean Bennett. She works as a guide in an animal park, with her divorced (therefore, former?) daughter-in-law, drinking and smoking, caring for animals both in the park and in own backyard, and waiting for one day in a week, when her granddaughter Kimberly age six stays with her. One of their usual games is to say, what this or than animal is saying, like
‘The dingo. What did she say to you?’
The whole lot of them is listening, so I get the mic out. Make my voice high and feathery, like a wild dog tail. ‘She said, “Jeanie-girl: you’re my best friend”.’
The strange disease with a flu-like symptoms allows people to understand what the animals around them are not even ‘saying’ but ‘thinking’, and it is notably different from Dr. Dolittle kind of ‘talk/thought’, which makes it hardly more understandable. For example, in their travel the protagonist meets a wagon with pigs from a farm and her dingo ‘says’:
Piglet.
Outside it
pops. Inside
it slithers.
This kind of constant animal noise which cannot be turned off, drives people mad. Or worse – gives them unrealistically high hopes. One of such is Jean’s son, Kimberly’s father – who takes his daughter without any prior agreement to the ocean, to listen to the whales. And Jean with a dingo bitch try to catch him up before Kimberly’s mother is aware of a ‘kidnapping’. They ride across the country seeing how traumatic a new understanding can be.
It is a heart wrenching story, not the kind I usually read. I cannot say that I plan to read more by her, even if the author is talented.
The title comes from poem by Margaret Atwood, which is partially printed at the start:
In that country the animals
have the faces of people:
the ceremonial
cats possessing the streets
the fox run
politely to earth, the huntsmen
standing around him, fixed
in their tapestry of manners
the bull, embroidered
with blood and given
an elegant death, trumpets, his name
stamped on him, heraldic brand
because
(when he rolled
on the sand, sword in his heart, the teeth
in his blue mouth were human)
he is really a man
even the wolves, holding resonant
conversations in their
forests thickened with legend.
In this country the animals
have the faces of
animals.
Their eyes
flash once in car headlights
and are gone.
Their deaths are not elegant.
They have the faces of
no-one.
October 11, 2022
One of the best books I've read this year and it's crazy to think that it would have slithered right under my radar if I hadn't happened across a blogger's review of it when I was reaching out to them to pitch a client's book.
I'm also shocked at how many people are either on the fence about it or flat out disliked it. It's so friggen good you guys! How can anyone not like it?!
It kicks off in a zoo, where we spend time with Jean, one of the zoo's guides, her daughter-in-law Ange, who runs the zoo, and her granddaughter Kim, at the very start of a highly transmittable virus that quickly escalates to pandemic status. Not long after the initial flu-like symptoms wear off, the infected begin communicating with animals - first, they can hear the mammals. Next, the birds. And there are some, god help them when they reach this stage, who can hear the insects.
Initially thought to have gone mad, many of them kill their pets, or release them from captivity. Ange gets word that all zoos and sanctuaries are to be placed on lockdown, and so lock down they do. Jean and Kim used to play a game where they'd guess what the animals were thinking, and to them, this "zooflu" sounds like a dream. Imagine what that could be like... speaking to the animals. Breaking that barrier and truly understanding their thoughts. It's especially enticing to Jean, who has bonded greatly to a female dingo named Sue that she rescued as a pup. So when her infected estranged son Lee shows up at the gates, she embraces the opportunity to let him inside.
As the exposure sets in amongst the staff, Lee takes off with Kim towards the ocean where he plans to commune with the whales, and Jean, now starting to show signs of the illness, hits the road with Sue. What follows is a hallucinatory and heart wrenching journey to reclaim her family and maintain her humanhood in a world in which the animals now appear to have the upper hand.
I'm also shocked at how many people are either on the fence about it or flat out disliked it. It's so friggen good you guys! How can anyone not like it?!
It kicks off in a zoo, where we spend time with Jean, one of the zoo's guides, her daughter-in-law Ange, who runs the zoo, and her granddaughter Kim, at the very start of a highly transmittable virus that quickly escalates to pandemic status. Not long after the initial flu-like symptoms wear off, the infected begin communicating with animals - first, they can hear the mammals. Next, the birds. And there are some, god help them when they reach this stage, who can hear the insects.
Initially thought to have gone mad, many of them kill their pets, or release them from captivity. Ange gets word that all zoos and sanctuaries are to be placed on lockdown, and so lock down they do. Jean and Kim used to play a game where they'd guess what the animals were thinking, and to them, this "zooflu" sounds like a dream. Imagine what that could be like... speaking to the animals. Breaking that barrier and truly understanding their thoughts. It's especially enticing to Jean, who has bonded greatly to a female dingo named Sue that she rescued as a pup. So when her infected estranged son Lee shows up at the gates, she embraces the opportunity to let him inside.
As the exposure sets in amongst the staff, Lee takes off with Kim towards the ocean where he plans to commune with the whales, and Jean, now starting to show signs of the illness, hits the road with Sue. What follows is a hallucinatory and heart wrenching journey to reclaim her family and maintain her humanhood in a world in which the animals now appear to have the upper hand.
January 1, 2020
What would happen if your childhood wish to speak to animals came true? This novel suggests that the dream would be a devastating nightmare. Heartbreaking.
This frighteningly timely novel calls into question the state of our humanity.
News footage and photos covering food and fuel shortages caused by the bushfire emergency seem like they were taken directly from scenes from this prescient book.
This frighteningly timely novel calls into question the state of our humanity.
News footage and photos covering food and fuel shortages caused by the bushfire emergency seem like they were taken directly from scenes from this prescient book.
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