The Animals in That Country
Laura Jean McKay · 2020
A virus gives humans the ability to understand animal communication. Part road trip novel, part speculative fiction masterpiece about what we'd actually hear if animals could speak. Won multiple Australian prizes and represents the best of literary speculative fiction from outside the usual centers.
The case against
McKay renders animal speech as broken italic verse, smeared body-talk you must decode line by line, and the decoding exhausts faster than it enchants. Jean, the hard-drinking grandmother at the wheel, is abrasive company for an entire road trip. Brilliant premise, punishing execution; you earn every mile.
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