Animals: A Novel [Paperback]

It is more than 100 years in the future and the horrors of factory farming, combined with the widespread abuse of antibiotics, have led to mass extinctions. The majority of all mammals, birds, and fish that humans have eaten for millennia no longer exist. Add to that an ever-widening gap between rich and poor and an overtaxed healthcare system. Those not fully capable — the handicapped, those with birth defects and congenital illness — are deemed undeserving of an equal share of scarce medical resources and are ultimately classified as less than human. As paranoia about our food supplies spreads, a forceful new logic takes hold; in the blink of a millennial eye the disenfranchised have become our food.
Don LePan’s powerful and compelling novel shows us a world at once eerily foreign and disturbingly familiar. It follows the Stinsons — Carrie, Zayne, and their daughter Naomi — and the dramatic events that unfold within their family after they take in an abandoned mongrel boy. In the sharp-edged poignancy of the ethical questions it poses, in the striking narrative techniques it employs, and above all, in the remarkable power of the story it tells,Animalsproves itself a transformative work of fiction.

Praise forAnimals

“LePan has an astute understanding of the contradictions and weaknesses of human nature . . . [Animals] will most certainly make you look at that steak on your dinner plate a little differently.” —The Boston Globe

A powerful piece of writing, and a disturbing call to conscience. —J.M. Coetzee

“LePan’s storytelling skills are on full display and the narrative brims with tension…. Animals is a brave and frequently fascinating novel, wrought with painful choices, harrowing journeys, and a deep passion for its subject matter.”—Montreal Review of Books

“An engaging story that asks deep and challengil³$