YOU'RE AN ANIMAL

A kaleidescopic novel about a quartet of misfits on the run that interrogates trauma, healing, and what it means to truly belong—from the acclaimed author of White Fur

It's springtime in Oklahoma and Ernie, an outcast in a group of outcasts, feels uneasy. The whole decrepit compound where Ernie and his fellow oddballs have been crashing has been on edge ever since a new girl arrived, a teenager named Coral unceremoniously abandoned by a minivan one afternoon. Even more mysterious, Coral doesn't say a word.

When a drug lab explosion burns the compound to the ground, Ernie, Coral, and adrenaline-fueled biker couple Staci and Ray escape on a pair of motorcycles and hit the road. Shaky with fear, the four strangers find a rundown house in rural Texas: a place to stay, they tell themselves, for now. Yet to their surprise, they each take cautious steps towards new beginnings, planting seeds, and slowly, uncertainly, forming a family.

But when the fire's terrible aftermath finally finds them, the group must confront the consequences of such unlikely love--the sort found only in lonely places--and their safe haven becomes a much more dangerous place.

A gentle, cautiously hopeful ode to the other, You're an Animal is a psychedelic, startling story that brings tenderness and grace to those who are left out, to those who opt out, and to the animal in us all.