- Pip Adam's The New Animals was originally published in New Zealand in 2017, and has just been released in a handsome new US edition by small publisher Dorothy, A Publishing Project. Having loved Audition, Adam's 2023 novel (which I reviewed here), I felt propelled to get into this, her earlier one.
- Frankly, I loved it more, if that were possible. It is truly an extraordinary work. There is so much going on in it. It's an immersion in the rawness of ordinary life and its demands and tensions, but at the same time it takes a much wider, more challenging view of human society and its contemporary crises. Adam seems to be suggesting that it's over. Yes, it's that brutal.
- Her novel explores themes of isolation and connection and despair. We are introduced to a small group of workers in the fashion industry and the contractors they hire to help them design and release a new line of clothing. There's a lot of detail about their personal interactions, frustrations and sex lives.
- Tommy runs the company. He's ambitious but across detail and smart. A natural leader. Carla, the hairdresser, preparing models for the launch, is a generation older, as are her colleagues. There is real tension between the two generations. Tommy sees it clearly: His generation was expected to fix everything…These forty-five-year old hairdressers and pattern cutters. None of them had ever grown up. They were too busy whining and revolting. It was up to him and his friends...Carla thought she was living the self-determined life, but she wasn’t. None of them had the money to do that. It was money.
- Adam sprinkles some fabulous observations throughout: That seemed to be the most important factual commodity these days - Anecdote, Opinion. Feeling. The American people were sick of experts.
- The final third of the novel takes us to a whole new place. It focuses on Elodie, the young makeup artist. She and Carla's vicious dog walk towards the sea late at night. The dog runs off and is never seen again (thankfully). Elodie, suicidal, sinks into calm water and seemingly transforms into a sea creature. She's surrounded by plastics and all sorts of discarded rubbish, witnessing rising sea levels, and eventually landing on an ‘island of rubbish'.
- So the ending is a real punch in the gut. We go from hope to planet doom. Adam is merciless, but she's offered us a thought-provoking novel of real depth and meaning.
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