Enter the Aardvark: ‘Deliciously astute, fresh and terminally funny’ GUARDIAN

Jessica Anthony

Mar 2020 · Random House

About this ebook

'It's a long time since I have enjoyed a novel so much. Fresh, witty and smart it also has a heart.' KATE ATKINSON

'Sizzles with uproarious fun, from its snout to the sting in its tale.' INDEPENDENT

'The perfect tonic for testing times.' GUARDIAN

We all know politics is absurd. But could a Republican be brought down by a stuffed aardvark?
Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is determined that nothing will stop him in his campaign for re-election. Not the fact that he is a bachelor, not the fact that his main adversary Nancy Beavers - married, with children - is rising in the polls. Nothing. That is, until one hot day in August, he receives a large parcel via FedEx. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark.

This aardvark has a surprising history - from the Victorian naturalist who discovered it to the taxidermist who deemed it his finest creation. But for Wilson, the entrance of the aardvark sets off a chain of events that threaten to ruin his entire career.

Constantly surprising, brilliantly comic and piquantly provocative, Enter the Aardvark is a tale for our times, a biting satire with a tender underbelly.
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'Sometimes, a paragraph near the start of a novel is so perfect and funny that you read it over and over, laugh every time, and know you're in for a treat...I'm loving this. Completely insane but utterly hilarious'. JOHN BOYNE

'Spry, slim, clever...the inventiveness is impressive and the story has heart' THE SUNDAY TIMES

'What begins as a topical takedown of the American political system deepens into a hugely enjoyable romp through history.' OBSERVER

'Fresh, astute and mouthwateringly sharp, this is a rare thing; a political satire that tugs on the heartstrings in unconventional ways.' IRISH TIMES

'Sharp, inventive and very funny, it's an entertainingly bizarre political satire.' TATLER

'Part 21st-century political satire, part unexpectedly affecting 19th-century love story...It's every bit as strange as it sounds, and yet somehow it works' DAILY MAIL

'Old, dead creature brings down flash, vain senator... Out in front as the most fizzing and amusing novel of the year.' STRONG WORDS magazine

'A blisteringly innovative and outrageous novel.' NY OBSERVER

'Weird, wonderful, and very much of the moment, Enter the Aardvark is a landmark political novel of the Trump era...With heart and humor, Anthony expertly skewers our current political climate.' ESQUIRE

'Inventive and darkly funny...as Anthony connects characters from today with those from 19th-century England, she offers an original and unsettling lens through which to view male power as it has evolved over time.' TIME

'Enter Jessica Anthony. With her highly inventive, ever attentive, and morally serious (as all great comedy must be) Enter the Aardvark, she estranges all over again our deplorable political moment, and thereby helps make it bearable.' JOSHUA FERRIS

'Mischievously zoological and darkly satirical - a brilliant novel' JOHN IRONMONGER, author of NOT FORGETTING THE WHALE

'A feverish, rollicking beast of a book. Totally assured, completely unpredictable, Jessica Anthony has created a true original.' SIMON WROE, author of CHOP CHOP and HERE COMES TROUBLE

Ratings and reviews

A very strange book, difficult to get into at first. I wonder if the aardvark is meant to represent something emotional or psychological. It was not "achingly funny", I think i laughed once. I'm glad i got it as an ebook on special offer, i wouldn't have wanted to pay the hardback price. F Dale.

About the author

Jessica Anthony is the author of The Convalescent (McSweeney’s/Grove), a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, and Chopsticks (Razorbill), a multimedia novel created in collaboration with designer Rodrigo Corral. Chopsticks, was an Amazon Book of the Month and won App of the Year. Anthony’ short stories can be found in Best New American Voices, Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney’s, The Idaho Review and elsewhere. She is the inaugural winner of McSweeney’s “Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award,” and has recently received fellowships from the Creative Capital Foundation for Innovative Literature, the Bogliasco Foundation in Bogliasco, Italy, and the Maine Arts Commission. Anthony has been a butcher in Alaska, an unlicensed masseuse in Poland, a secretary in San Francisco. In 2017, while writing Enter the Aardvark, her next novel, Anthony was working as “Bridge Guard,” guarding the Maria Valeria Bridge between Štúrovo, Slovakia and Esztergom, Hungary. Normally, she lives in Maine and teaches at Bates College.