We the Animals

Justin Torres' charged debut novel, We the Animals, focuses on the turbulent lives of three brothers in upstate New York as seen through the eyes of their introspective youngest sibling. The brothers smash dishes and fight each other with garden tools, while their mother, who works the graveyard shift at a brewery, has manic outbursts alternating with bouts of catatonic stupor, and their underemployed father disappears for long stretches of time, avoiding responsibility while struggling to be a positive role model. Torres' tightly structured, affecting chapters capture the intensity of the parents' fiery relationship, and balances the brothers' violent behavior with a tenderness they reserve and express for their haggard mother. Speaking in the first person plural, the narrator is part of the family drama yet remains distant, a difficult narrative choice that, for the most part, Torres pulls off quite well. As the book progresses, the narrator begins to subtly distance himself from his family, and it gradually becomes clear that the real story in many ways is about how his family members see him in relation to his burgeoning homosexuality. Although the payoff in the end doesn't quite live up to the chaotic early chapters, Torres' prose is strong and exhilarating, and manages to make family heartbreak seem almost enchanting.