Ella Baxter's debut novel, New Animal, is a raw and irreverent portrait of one young woman's experience of the ways in which sexuality and sorrow overlap. Amelia spends her days alternating between one-night stands on her dating app and working as a funerary makeup artist, activities that--while not detestable to her--leave her feeling lonely and unmoored. And that's before her beloved mother dies suddenly, leaving her bereft and restless beyond containment. Unable to face the funeral with her brother and her well-meaning stepfather, Amelia runs off to stay with her unconventional biological father in Tasmania. There, she begins to experiment in the BDSM community, and finally begins to recognize the depth of her grief.
Baxter's crisp, clean prose offers a surprisingly tender look at mourning from an unusual angle. Baxter accomplishes the surprising feat of discussing often taboo topics like BDSM with sensitivity, respect and complexity. While Baxter never shies away from the darker and uncomfortable elements of both sex and grief, the novel's side characters soften the edges of her story's sharper elements. Both of Amelia's fathers, in particular, give the story its true heart, despite or because of their oddities and imperfections. And while Amelia's burgeoning self-awareness is far from complete by novel's end, readers will have a sense of witnessing quiet revelation. Darkly comedic in its first half and unexpectedly vulnerable in its second, New Animal, like its protagonist, presents a coolly casual exterior only to reveal the fragile truths at its core. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor