Fleur Macdonald

Life’s a bitch: Animal, by Lisa Taddeo, reviewed

Thirtysomething Joan is ready to steal, cheat and kill in a novel of revenge which doubles as an ode to LA past and present

Los Angeles features prominently in Lisa Taddeo’s novel. [Alamy] 
issue 10 July 2021

Lisa Taddeo’s debut Three Women was touted as groundbreaking. In reality it was a limp, occasionally overwritten account of the sexual hang-ups of three ordinary women. It took eight years to research and write. It didn’t seem worth it.

Luckily, she was also gathering material for a novel, Animal, a book teeming with the rage, frustration and drama so lacking in the debut. The same motifs and ideas —mothers, desire, shame — appear, but with a story that twists and turns.

Animal is the first-person account of Joan, a slightly unhinged 37-year-old woman: ‘I am depraved. I hope you like me.’ She leaves New York after her former lover shoots himself in the face in a restaurant while she’s on a date with another man. This event does not so much upset her as prompt her to go cross country and seek out Alice, a beautiful, mysterious yoga teacher in Los Angeles.

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