In Unlikely Animals, the wistfully charming tragicomedy from Annie Hartnett (Rabbit Cake), a chorus of all-seeing ghosts tied to a cemetery in Everton, N.H., relates an offbeat saga of peculiar animals, missing people and family ties, set against the backdrop of the opioid crisis.
Since birth, 22-year-old Emma Starling has possessed the power to heal with her touch. When the med school dropout arrives back in tiny Everton, everyone assumes she's come to heal her father. Professor Clive Starling is dying of a brain disease so mysterious it can be diagnosed only via autopsy, and he now spends his days with the ghost of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes. Baynes has suggestions for susceptible Clive, like ordering an $18,000 semi-domesticated Russian fox. The ghosts know Baynes is real and initially find Clive's predicament "both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best." They're less amused, however, after they learn Emma can't help Clive "edge the Grim Reaper out by a nose." Her hands have lost the healing touch.
Loosely based on a real town and the obscure historical figure Baynes, Unlikely Animals feels like a fairy tale--if fairy tales encapsulated all the messiness of real life. It perfectly captures the tone and texture of a town where life is inescapably colored by the opioid crisis. Pops of humor abound, especially in Emma's interactions with her students and the occasional moments when the ghosts give one of the animal characters the main point of view. This unapologetically genre-bending tribute to life, death and the beautiful weirdness found in both has potential to spark exceptional book club discussions. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads