Taddeo is writing with all her stars out, though they shone a little brighter when life itself supplied the plot. The intention seems less to shine a light on human nature than to cast it in funhouse shapes. As the story unfolds, Joan’s depravity has a numbing effect, and the unremitting degeneracy of the male characters begins to seem didactic. She is less successful at imagining the shape of a life.
She has a gift for aphorism, the observation that astonishes. Writing a novel is a shell game-an elaborate con in which the author aims to dazzle with what she does well, in hopes of distracting the reader from what she can’t do at all. If its particulars don’t always make sense, its values at least remain consistent.
The world of Animal is relentlessly bleak. Joan’s voice is so sharp and magnetic that the reader will follow her anywhere-even to the dark and increasingly unbelievable depths her creator sends her. But what she lacks in nuance, she makes up for in bravado, psychological acuity and sly wit. She’s at her best when exploring the murky, sometimes twisted relations between men and women.
In Animal she gleefully does the opposite. To her great credit, Taddeo resists the pressure-rampant these days-to craft a likable, 'relatable' female narrator.
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