Animal - Lisa Taddeo

 

This is an emotionally brutal, searingly angry tale of trauma, survival, revenge  and, I guess,  a desire for female empowerment. I was bemused by the titular ’animal’  because this isn’t how most animals behave, excluding humans of course, but I felt ultimately it was more to do with the basic, animal, primeval instinct for survival at all costs.

It’s hard to warm to Joan until you are furnished with the facts and details of her life which fill you with horror. Only then do you begin to understand why she does what she does, and is who she is. And how hard it can be for others to interpret what someone else has been through and understand what effect trauma has on an individual, mentally.

‘I drove myself out of New York City where a man shot himself in front of me. He was a gluttonous man and when his blood came out it looked like the blood of a pig.

That's a cruel thing to think, I know. He did it in a restaurant where I was having dinner with another man, another married man.

Do you see how this is going? But I wasn't always that way.

I am depraved. I hope you like me.

MEET JOAN: SUMMER 2021’

As blurbs go that’s pretty minimal but it’s enough surely to whet your appetite? A set of paradoxes to intrigue a reader. Yet they subtly offer clues. Somehow you know it’s going to be an uncomfortable, harrowing read. So if you’re looking for some rom-com, chick-lit, then run away now for this will bend the framework of your comfort zone irrevocably out of shape.

There’s an element of mystery to the narrative, the key to Joan lies in seeking the answers to her unanswered questions. There are subtle hints that probably lead the astute reader to the correct conclusions regarding identity and relationships. Obliquely nestling within the narrative  are considerations of nature versus nurture. And the question of whether to understand trauma you have to have suffered trauma went through my mind. And from there, of course, individual understanding of trauma may differ. Such is the introspection of the human animal that there may be many who might aver that their behaviour would differ widely from that of Joan’s. But trauma doesn’t come with an instruction manual or novels like these would not be written.

Alongside experiencing individual trauma and dealing with it are broader observations on a male dominated society and gender attitudes towards sex. It’s book probably destined to provoke many discussions because it deals with uncomfortable  subjects head on. So it’s not a book to entertain, it’s a book to make you think. Life can be uncomfortable. Dreadful things happen and people have to deal with them and continue their lives. Creativity can offer us a lens into different states. However for all its ferocity there is a redemption in the conclusion. It’s a well written, well paced narrative  of nuanced substance.

My thanks to Georgina Moore at Midas PR for a gifted proof.