Loving, Faithful Animal

Josephine Rowe

Feb 2016 · Univ. of Queensland Press

About this ebook

The much-anticipated debut novel from one of Australia’s most gifted young writersYour father. His head is a ghost trap. It’s all he can do to open his mouth without letting them all howl out. Even so, you can still see them, sliding around the dark behind his eyes ... It is New Year’s Eve, 1990, and Ru’s father, Jack, has disappeared in the wake of a savage incident. A Vietnam War veteran, he has long been an erratic presence at home, where Ru’s allegiances are divided amongst those she loves. Her sister, Lani, seeks to escape the claustrophobia of small-town life, while their mother, Evelyn, takes refuge in a more vibrant past. And then there’s Les, Jack’s inscrutable brother, whose loyalties are also torn.A Loving, Faithful Animal is an incandescent portrait of one family searching for what may yet be redeemable from the ruins of war. Tender, brutal, and heart-stopping in its beauty, this is a hypnotic novel by one of Australia’s brightest talents.

Ratings and reviews

Australian. A world-shaker author. Teaches at Stanford. A novel of intergenerational family life the Aussie mainstream hates.. Which is why our facile politicians won't fund services for the traumatised and veterans in particular are left to sink or swim. Which is why truly heroic volunteers work their butts off reaching out to these men and women.

About the author

Josephine Rowe is an Australian writer of short fiction, poetry and essays. Her story collections include How a Moth Becomes a Boat and Tarcutta Wake, which was longlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Iowa Review, Best Australian Poems, Best Australian Stories, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Five Dials, Australian Poetry Since 1788 and Harvard Review. She is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University.