We The Animals

We the Animals, by Justin Torres, was fantastic.

I read it because V and I were going to the Grub Street book club / author q&a, and I am so glad I did - actually, so glad I did all of those things. The Grub Street book club was a new experience, but overall I liked it. Naturally, there were a few people I wanted to murder, since they just kept talking about themselves, or talking about the book but monopolizing the conversation, but for the most part it was really interesting. I very much appreciated the approach, which was looking at the writing of the book - the language, the images, the character development, what decisions the author made and why we thought he made them - as opposed to just talking about the story, which I imagine would have been the focus of a "regular" book club, or one not meant to be filled with aspiring (or realized) authors. The craft was definitely the main point here, which was an engaging way into the book, as well as an interesting conversation on it's own.

The leader of the session, one of Grub Street's instructors, had us start by talking to the person next to us about one scene we really loved, and then we all said them to the group and she put them on the board. I was skeptical at first, but just that alone ended up being cool, because there were some that I had already thought of, some that were like "oh, of COURSE, had to be up there, can't believe I forgot that," and other scenes or lines I seriously didn't remember (but in one case - a scene at Niagara Falls - I thought "I need to go back and read that right now!"). I think starting by talking just to our neighbors before speaking to the whole circle was a good way of breaking the ice. I actually didn't talk much or at all in the larger group, in part because I was getting testy at some of the others, but I think I would have felt comfortable doing so, after having come in, not being sure what was going on, but then having a really animated conversation (well, on my side) with the woman next to me (didn't turn to V, who was on the other side, since it seemed like cheating - we already knew each other, and had already discussed our favorite scenes over the wine we chugged before heading into the meeting).

The rest of the first hour was the group discussion, pretty well moderated, although some people could have been shut up more, and then the author of the book came in to speak with us, answer questions, and then finally do a brief reading. Hearing Torres speak about the book, and, more importantly, the process of writing the book, was great. I was a little disappointed in the reading; someone suggested the scene that was my favorite in the whole book (when they're dancing in the kitchen), but the way he read it just seemed wrong. It wasn't at all the way it went in my head. I know that's dumb, since he wrote it and all, but V felt the same way. It was just...it's a really intimate, strong, gentle/brutal, vivid book. And that scene was all of those things and then some, full of love with danger and uncertainty looming over it, but he read it in this very hushed, polite, friendly, sing-song-y kind of voice, more like a poem about birds or daffodils or something. But maybe that's the way the scene is in his head, I don't know...

As far as the book itself...yeah. Just amazing. It's nominally the "story" of a young boy and his brothers, and their life when they were children. It's hard to say more than that without spoiling one of the main strengths of the story which is how the characters, and their backgrounds, are slowly and very deliberately revealed.

Slim, a quick read, but packed with fantastic images and languages; characters, too, but less so. This isn't really as much a story, I don't think, as it is a series of heart-wrenching (not necessarily in a bad way), gorgeously honed scenes. I remember thinking as I read that he either is or had - or both - an amazing editor, because the book is so very pared down, lean like some sort of ridiculous athlete, just muscles and sinews and a little skin on top, no fat, nothing extraneous, and so very, very strong.

There was one scene with the mother and a co-worker that I didn't understand; that is, I thought it was going to lead to something more (no thoughts on what, just more), but it sort of drifted around by itself. Kind of that, if you show us a gun, someone should get shot thing. A small nit-pick, though.

Most of it, I loved. I loved the way the story starts off with a collective narrator, in a sense - the "we" of the title - and how and why that evolves, I thought he did a fantastic job of parceling out information so it unfolds in a totally organic way but also surprises you and makes you re-evaluate what you've already read... Love :)