Review of ANIMAL by Lisa Taddeo

 3 Stars

Though I understand the author’s intention, this book just didn’t work for me because it comes across as unrestrained in several ways.    

Joan drives from New York City to Los Angeles to track down Alice, a celebrity yoga instructor who has some mysterious connection to Joan’s past.  Her developing relationship with Alice serves as the catalyst for Joan’s slowly revealing the traumas which have left her “depraved.”  Joan describes her life as ending at the age of 10 when traumas occurred which defined the intervening 25+ years.  A recent event sends her over the edge:  a scorned lover recently shot himself in front of her while she was having dinner with another man.  Though she describes herself as a survivor, she is filled with a rage which has destroyed her human self so that her animal nature takes control.

Joan is the narrator.  Periodically she directly addresses someone using the second person pronoun; the reader can guess the identity of this person being addressed, and the mystery is eventually clarified.  The problem is that, given the identity of her intended audience, what Joan reveals is almost too honest and borders on inappropriate because, though this is not Joan’s intention, what she tells would be traumatizing to the listener.

Joan is not a likeable character.  Initially, I had some sympathy for her, especially when she demonstrated some positive qualities like generosity, but her negative traits are so dominant that my sympathy waned.  She is devious and ruthless.  She uses her beauty and sexuality to manipulate everyone she meets.  One-night stands and affairs with married men are routine for her.  She sexualizes every interaction with men.  Even her memories of her parents are sexualized:  when she is sexually aroused, she thinks of her father, and she seems unusually focused on her mother’s breasts so that even when she has a gun pointed at her, she thinks of her mother’s enormous nipples.  She has few interests apart from sex; Joan spends her time not reading, listening to music, or even watching television, but drinking and taking pills.  She says, “There was no way to hear my story and still hate me.”  I didn’t hate her, but her despicable acts didn’t make me like her. 

The plot becomes increasingly far-fetched and unbelievable.  The lack of an investigation into one man’s death is totally unrealistic.  The book includes rapes, suicides, and murders.  The piling on of trauma, often graphically described, becomes almost pornographic.  In Joan’s opinion, men are always degenerates:  “All my life, all the men taking what they wanted and leaving when it was over.”  She despises men who are guilty of infidelity, yet she never experiences guilt for her role in infidelities?  The author becomes almost didactic as she stacks the deck to illustrate her theme. 

I can applaud the writer’s wanting to show the effects of trauma; however, I found the constant descriptions of men’s depravity excessive.  The plot becomes almost grotesque.  Also, I was unable to connect with the main character and so didn’t feel invested in the story.  Writing a book that has so many over-the-top elements is not the way to convince me of the relevance of its theme.