Perhaps only the animals can tell us what it is to be human
The souls of ten animals caught up in human conflicts over the last century and connected to both famous and little-known writers in surprising ways tell their astonishing stories of life and death. In a trench on the Western Front, a cat recalls her owner Colette's theatrical antics in Paris. In Nazi Germany, a dog seeks enlightenment. A Russian tortoise once owned by the Tolstoys drifts in space during the Cold War. During the Siege of Sarajevo, a starving bear tells a fairy tale. And a dolphin sent to Iraq by the U.S. Navy writes a letter to Sylvia Plath.
Exquisitely written, playful, and poignant, Ceridwen Dovey's Only the Animals is a remarkable literary achievement by one of our brightest young writers. An animal's-eye-view of humans at our brutal, violent worst and our creative, imaginative best, it asks us to find our way back to empathy not only for animals but for other people, and to believe again in the redemptive power of reading and writing fiction.
Industry Reviews
-These stories are strange and richly imagined, well researched and at times haunting and atmospheric . . . Dovey is a gifted prose stylist . . . This collection unflinchingly illuminates human nature, and makes clear that the rest of the natural world can only bear witness.- --Megan Mayhew Bergman, The New York Times Book Review-Inventive . . . Dovey has daringly shrugged off the constraints of conventional fiction. These stories are alternately funny and distressing . . . In Only the Animals, Dovey has tried something audacious. Aiming to see the world anew, she's crafted an unusual and beguiling ode to the feathered, the four-legged, and the fearless creatures of the sea.- --Kevin Canfield, Minneapolis Star-Tribune-Dazzling.- --Stephanie Cross, The Guardian-The book doesn't come across as contrived, in part because Dovey's prose is so sharp and unsentimental, in part because she is able to use the same premise to such different effects . ., Only the Animals' doesn't simplify or sentimentalize, but it does suggest that there is something irreducibly powerful about our imaginative bonds with animals. As long as there are humans, there will be animals, and as long as there are animals, we will think and write and dream about them.- --Anthony Domestico, The Boston Globe-Wonderfully weird and profoundly witty . . . Dovey's stories, at once charming and haunting, are something else altogether. -Absorbing- is not quite the right word for them--their poetic oddness keep them at arm's length--but they are intoxicating nonetheless. As unsettling as they are beautiful, these quietly wise stories wedge themselves into your mind--and stay there.- --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)-Dovey succeeds in providing original bittersweet tales with the hard-edged truths of history. An essential collection, enthusiastically recommended.- --Donna Bettencourt, Library Journal (starred review)-By appropriating history, mythology, folklore, and even astrology, Dovey finds impressive depth and complexity in the souls of an array of animals . . . Dovey finds humanity in her diverse protagonists, and the stories are full of surprises, warmth, and insight.- --Publishers Weekly-A beautifully wrought, disconcerting collection.- --Nell Porter Brown, Harvard Magazine-I remember being told once that there are bioluminescent plankton; these stories remind me of that fantastic, startling and real illumination. The animal narrators are not mythic, or naive--they are psychologically full. And though the humans in these stories often act like beasts, having actual beasts tell the stories give the reader a broadened sense of what we affectionately term humanity.- --Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances-I have been waiting, since Blood Kin, for another work of fiction by Ceridwen Dovey. Only the Animals is filled with knowledge and wisdom and beauty. It leaves a strange and striking trace on its reader.- --Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers-The life stories related by these very civilized animals are in some cases touching (the elephant), in others amusing (the mussel), but all are absorbing. They are transmitted to us with a light touch and no trace of sentimentality.- --J. M. Coetzee-An audacious work of the imagination . . . An extraordinary series of fabulist tales . . . The yarns are funny, tragic, smart, arch, poignant and playful all at once.- --The Saturday Age (Australia)
