Talking Animals

A fable for modern times, Joni Murphy&;s Talking Animals takes place in an all-animal world where creatures rather like us are forced to deal with an all-too-familiar landscape of soul-crushing jobs, polluted oceans, and a creeping sense of doom.

It&;s New York City, nowish. Lemurs brew espresso. Birds tend bar. There are bears on Wall Street, and a billionaire racehorse is mayor. Sea creatures are viewed with fear and disgust and there&;s chatter about building a wall to keep them out.

Alfonzo is a moody alpaca. His friend Mitchell is a sociable llama. They both work at City Hall, but their true passions are noise music and underground politics. Partly to meet girls, partly because the world might be ending, these lowly bureaucrats embark on an unlikely mission to expose the corrupt system that&;s destroying the city from within. Their project takes them from the city&;s bowels to its extremities, where they encounter the Sea Equality Revolutionary Front, who are either a group of dangerous radicals or an inspiring liberation movement.

In this novel, at last, nature kvetches and grieves. Solace is found in dumb jokes shared with friends. This is Renata Adler version of BoJack Horseman. It&;s Charlotte&;s Web woven within Kafka's Amerika. It&;s dogs and cats, living together. Talking Animals is an urgent allegory about community, art, and the elemental struggle to change one&;s life under the low ceiling of capitalism.