We the Animals

June 27, 2011
Three brothers and a dueling husband and wife are bound by poverty and love in this debut novel from Stegner Fellow Torres. Manny, Joel, and the unnamed youngest, who narrates, are rambunctious and casually violent. Their petite "white" mother, with her night-shift job and unstable marriage to the boys' impulsive Puerto Rican father, is left suspended in an abusive yet still often joyous home. Nothing seems to turn out right, whether it's Paps getting fired for bringing the boys to work or Ma loading them in the truck and fleeing into the woods. The short tales that make up this novel are intriguing and beautifully written, but take too long to reach the story's heart, the narrator's struggle to come of age and discover his sexuality in a hostile environment. When the narrator's father catches him dancing like a girl, he remarks: "Goddamn, I got me a pretty one." From this point the story picks up momentum, ending on a powerful note, as Torres ratchets up the consequences of being different.

August 1, 2011

An exquisitely crafted debut novel—subtle, shimmering and emotionally devastating.

Those whose memories of contemporary literature extend a quarter century might be tempted to compare this with Susan Minot's Monkeys (1986), another short, elliptical debut novel about family dynamics that received rapturous reviews upon publication. Yet this is a different novel, and a better one, about a different sort of family and a narrator's discovery of how he is both a part of them and apart from them. The dedication—"For my mother, my brothers and my father and for Owen"—suggests that the narrator's rites of passage reflect the author's own, that this is a novel that probes deep, even painful truths no matter how factual it may be. The narrator is the youngest of three sons of a white, Brooklyn mother and a Puerto Rican father, who became parents in their teens. Like the title suggests, the first-person narration initially might as well be plural, for the narrator and his older brothers Manny and Leon resemble "a three-torsoed beast," scrounging for sustenance and meaning amid the tumultuous relationship of their parents, one that the boys can barely understand (though sometimes they intuit more than the narrator can articulate). Their bond provides what little defense they have against their mother's emotional instability and their father's unsteady employment and fidelity. They are, like some of the most exhilarating writing, "wild and loose and free." Yet the narrative voice is a marvel of control—one that reflects the perceptions and limitations of a 7-year-old in language that suggests someone older is channeling his younger perspective. In short chapters that stand alone yet ultimately achieve momentum, the narrator comes to terms with his brothers, his family and his sexuality, separating the "I" from the "we" and suffering the consequences. Ultimately, the novel has a redemptive resonance—for the narrator, for the rest of the fictional family and for the reader as well.

Upon finishing, readers might be tempted to start again, not wanting to let it go.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011

In punchy, energized language, the narrator of this dark and affecting little book relates life with his two brothers and their too young, just-making-it parents. The boys play and fight, with the first sometimes blending into the second, and though the parents can be loving with each other and with their sons, there's often trouble. Ma stops going to work when Paps briefly takes up with another woman, for instance, and becomes spiteful when he brings home a new truck with no seat belts or even backseats. The narrative moves in a straight line but is not straightforward, with the story and the texture of this family's life disclosed through a string of telling incidents. The narrator reports it all in a dispassionate, almost starry-eyed youngster's sort of way, frequently in the first person plural--"we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful--little animals, clawing at what we need"--but a creeping tension is in the air. When real anguish bursts forth at the end, you almost think it comes undeserved--and then you applaud first novelist Torres's genius ability to twist around and punch you in the gut. VERDICT Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 3/28/11.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011
Told in the form of linked short stories (some very shortno more than three pages), Torres' first novel is an impressionistic examination of a family of mixed race and ethnicity: the mother is white; the father, Puerto Rican. Though originally from Brooklyn, the family now lives in upstate New York, though the setting is seldom site-specific. The stories focus on the family's three boysManny, 10; Joel, 9; and the narrator, 7and are often elegiac accounts of fighting over blankets or flying trash-bag kites, but because the parents' marriage is contentious, some are tinged with violence. The title is a reference to the narrator's view of his brothers and himself as being animals; readers may think of puppies but sometimes of something wilder. And that something wilder comes to prevail as the boys grow up and the narrator realizes he's gay. This will lead to an uncharacteristically operatic, almost melodramatic ending that seems to violate the book's tone. But be that as it may, Torres is clearly a gifted writer with a special talent for tone and characterization. His novel is a pleasure to read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2011

An exquisitely crafted debut novel--subtle, shimmering and emotionally devastating.

Those whose memories of contemporary literature extend a quarter century might be tempted to compare this with Susan Minot's Monkeys (1986), another short, elliptical debut novel about family dynamics that received rapturous reviews upon publication. Yet this is a different novel, and a better one, about a different sort of family and a narrator's discovery of how he is both a part of them and apart from them. The dedication--"For my mother, my brothers and my father and for Owen"--suggests that the narrator's rites of passage reflect the author's own, that this is a novel that probes deep, even painful truths no matter how factual it may be. The narrator is the youngest of three sons of a white, Brooklyn mother and a Puerto Rican father, who became parents in their teens. Like the title suggests, the first-person narration initially might as well be plural, for the narrator and his older brothers Manny and Leon resemble "a three-torsoed beast," scrounging for sustenance and meaning amid the tumultuous relationship of their parents, one that the boys can barely understand (though sometimes they intuit more than the narrator can articulate). Their bond provides what little defense they have against their mother's emotional instability and their father's unsteady employment and fidelity. They are, like some of the most exhilarating writing, "wild and loose and free." Yet the narrative voice is a marvel of control--one that reflects the perceptions and limitations of a 7-year-old in language that suggests someone older is channeling his younger perspective. In short chapters that stand alone yet ultimately achieve momentum, the narrator comes to terms with his brothers, his family and his sexuality, separating the "I" from the "we" and suffering the consequences. Ultimately, the novel has a redemptive resonance--for the narrator, for the rest of the fictional family and for the reader as well.

Upon finishing, readers might be tempted to start again, not wanting to let it go.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)