With bravura storytelling, daring imagination, and fierce narrative
control, this dazzling debut introduces that rare writer who finds
humanity in our most unconventional behavior, and the humor beneath our
darkest impulses.
In these ten strange, funny, and unnerving
stories, animals become the litmus test of our deepest fears and
longings. In the title story, an elephant keeper courts danger from his
gentle charge; in "Miss Waldron's Red Colobus," a headstrong young
woman in Africa is lured by the freedom of the monkeys in the trees; in "Talk Turkey," a boy has secret conversations with the turkeys on his
friend's family’s farm; in "Slim's Last Ride," a child plays chilling
games with his pet rabbit; in "Gallus Gallus," a pompous husband
projects his anger at his wife onto her prized rooster.
This
fresh, inventive debut will introduce Hannah Tinti as one of the most
gifted writers of her generation. Enter her world at your own risk, and
you will come away bewitched.