Unlikely Animals takes place in the fictional Everton, New Hampshire, loosely based on the real Upper Valley in NH. The setting is a small rural town, home to a millionaires’ hunting park. The spirits in the Maple Street Cemetery provide commentary about the people and animals and their history, including the exclusive hunting grounds. These speaking ghosts are omniscient and admonitory. Other background information is divulged in snippets from a book written by Harold Baynes, a naturalist who gave exotic animals to his wife as apologies. Harold was particularly fond of The Sprite, a tame red fox that provides literal and symbolic meaning for this mystical, magical story where a pet fox figures prominently.
One of the protagonists, Emma Starling, was said to have a condition called charismata iamaton which translates to “a gift of healing.” She was born with this charm, and her powers sped up the healing process for many townspeople she interacted with as a child. She had a childhood friend named Crystal who practiced healing in a manner resembling witchcraft, and together, they had a well-known business in Everton. However, Emma’s healing abilities gradually wore off while she was away at college and were nonexistent when she returned home to Everton to care for her dying father.
Clive Starling, Emma’s father, taught poetry at a local college and struggled with a forced retirement due to his progressive brain disease, which caused hallucinations and led to many problematic behaviors. However, his fourth wife, Ingrid, mother to Emma and Augie, tolerated his illness and tried to remain married after Clive’s recent affair. Ingrid is a college librarian and manages the mansion connected to Corbin Park, the hunter’s retreat. She has mixed feelings about Emma’s return to the family home, and she is worried about Augie, who has recently completed rehab for opioid addiction.
While reacclimating to family life, Emma has to deal with her father’s bizarre behaviors. For example, he wanders out in public virtually naked. He talks to ghosts, and he is obsessed with finding Crystal, Emma’s childhood friend, who developed an opioid addiction and was presumed dead since she had disappeared. Additionally, she must reconnect with her mother and brother as she learns to be a substitute teacher for a class of needy fifth graders. Augie expresses many childhood resentments toward Emma and his family as he learns to live as an adult and establishes a drug-free life. All members of the Starling family change as the story progresses. The father’s growth is degenerative and more animalistic, and Hartnett does a great job showing the development of family dynamics and integrates instinctive familial emotions influenced by animals and spirits. In essence, she tells a story of the human-animal and its non-tangible qualities.
Annie Hartnett’s novel was an enjoyable read; I found it was a perfect mix of real family life and far-fetched tales of domesticated wild animals, talking ghosts, and humans with supernatural powers. She carefully used names and animals to convey their symbolic and spiritual significance, and many plot points had literal and metaphoric explanations. Many themes were compelling: friendship, family relationships, healing, recovery, positive energy, persistence, guilt, grief, shame, loyalty, and many more. The characters were relatable, and topics such as mental illness, opioid addiction, and living in harmony with animals, commonly explored in modern novels, are treated with fresh insight. Millennial authors are continually trying to make sense of the world they are inheriting, and this book, with its fantastical elements, provides an escape and doses of reality.
I received a copy of Unlikely Animals free of charge from NetGalley. I am glad I had an opportunity to read something different from what I would typically choose. I recommend it for literary and animal enthusiasts.
