TITLE: Dead Animals
AUTHOR: Phoebe Stuckes
PUBLISHER: Sceptre
ISBN: 978-1399728133
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
The protagonist meets a woman called Helene at a party and discovers they both suffered abuse at the hands of the same man. What follows is a dark journey into trauma, hatred, revenge and obsession, as the two women each try, in their own way, to work through their experiences.
This dark and disturbing tale sucked me in from the outset, but it’s not a comfortable read by any means. This is a book which grips your hand as it suffers its panic attack and digs its nails into your flesh, dragging you with it every step of the way. It’s a jarring and discomfiting read, sharing every intimate and harrowing moment the unnamed protagonist experiences. Described by the publisher Hachette UK as ‘a novel about peripheries: the thing flickering at the corner of your vision’, it keeps the reader in those uncomfortable spaces right alongside the protagonist, the immediacy of the prose ensuring that the feeling of discomfort never leaves.
I found the author’s writing style intriguing. Many of her sentences consist of three phrases always separated by commas, ignoring the usual rules of grammar. Initially, this jarred with me. However, as I read on, I found that it added to the claustrophobia and the sense of being swept along in the story. These sentences paint a picture of an awkward person rushing through their words in a desperate rush to get them out somehow, and it’s relentless. There is no respite. Just as the protagonist lacks anything to ground her, so too does the reader; the pace emphasises the feeling of simply being swept along without anywhere to rest and recover. It’s like cycling down a hill and your brakes fail just after you start, sending you hurtling ever faster towards an unpleasant conclusion, increasingly out of control and helpless.
Yet when the conclusion came, it did so in a rush and was over almost before it had begun. I struggled with it. It was unsatisfying, even after a couple of re-reads. Yet this is a book about trauma, abuse and obsession, and the seemingly rushed ending is fitting for the protagonist; the hollowness we see throughout, as she struggles to come to terms with the abuse and ensuing mental health issues, comes out very powerfully in the almost offhand tone of the final pages. It’s easy to imagine someone numbed by their experiences, simply going through the motions of life.
The book highlights the horrors of the aftermath of abuse, and one phrase in particular stood out for me, in the context of victims of abuse – “I could be anyone.”
This is a challenging read, and one which will stay with you.
AUTHOR: Phoebe Stuckes
PUBLISHER: Sceptre
ISBN: 978-1399728133
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
The protagonist meets a woman called Helene at a party and discovers they both suffered abuse at the hands of the same man. What follows is a dark journey into trauma, hatred, revenge and obsession, as the two women each try, in their own way, to work through their experiences.
This dark and disturbing tale sucked me in from the outset, but it’s not a comfortable read by any means. This is a book which grips your hand as it suffers its panic attack and digs its nails into your flesh, dragging you with it every step of the way. It’s a jarring and discomfiting read, sharing every intimate and harrowing moment the unnamed protagonist experiences. Described by the publisher Hachette UK as ‘a novel about peripheries: the thing flickering at the corner of your vision’, it keeps the reader in those uncomfortable spaces right alongside the protagonist, the immediacy of the prose ensuring that the feeling of discomfort never leaves.
I found the author’s writing style intriguing. Many of her sentences consist of three phrases always separated by commas, ignoring the usual rules of grammar. Initially, this jarred with me. However, as I read on, I found that it added to the claustrophobia and the sense of being swept along in the story. These sentences paint a picture of an awkward person rushing through their words in a desperate rush to get them out somehow, and it’s relentless. There is no respite. Just as the protagonist lacks anything to ground her, so too does the reader; the pace emphasises the feeling of simply being swept along without anywhere to rest and recover. It’s like cycling down a hill and your brakes fail just after you start, sending you hurtling ever faster towards an unpleasant conclusion, increasingly out of control and helpless.
Yet when the conclusion came, it did so in a rush and was over almost before it had begun. I struggled with it. It was unsatisfying, even after a couple of re-reads. Yet this is a book about trauma, abuse and obsession, and the seemingly rushed ending is fitting for the protagonist; the hollowness we see throughout, as she struggles to come to terms with the abuse and ensuing mental health issues, comes out very powerfully in the almost offhand tone of the final pages. It’s easy to imagine someone numbed by their experiences, simply going through the motions of life.
The book highlights the horrors of the aftermath of abuse, and one phrase in particular stood out for me, in the context of victims of abuse – “I could be anyone.”
This is a challenging read, and one which will stay with you.