Three brothers tear their way through childhood-smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from rubbish, hiding when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn-he's Puerto Rican, she's white-barely out of childhood themselves, and their love is a serious, dangerous thing. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to forge his own way in the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and incredibly powerful.
We the Animals
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Review
'This debut is a searing and sparkling piece of writing that promises great things to come'
--Esquire
'Exciting and unique. Torres's powerful, lyrical prose gives even the darkest of scenes a sheen of brilliance'
--Stylist
'Torres prose has the intensity of poetry. This debut holds out the promise of further virtuoso writing' --Independent
'This coming of age story oscillates between violence and affection, pathos and humour, enriched by fresh and ornate prose'
--Observer
--Esquire
'Exciting and unique. Torres's powerful, lyrical prose gives even the darkest of scenes a sheen of brilliance'
--Stylist
'Torres prose has the intensity of poetry. This debut holds out the promise of further virtuoso writing' --Independent
'This coming of age story oscillates between violence and affection, pathos and humour, enriched by fresh and ornate prose'
--Observer
About the Author
Justin Torres was born in 1980 and grew up in upstate New York. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, and Glimmer Train. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a recipient of the Rolon United States Artist Fellowship in Literature, and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Entartete Musik
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Justin Torres' debut novel We the Animals has impressed on both sides of the Atlantic. A snapshot of a broken Hispanic family in Upstate New York, it charts the passage of time from early childhood to the gay youngest son's incarceration in a mental institution. Vivid phrases and bruised memories make for a bold read, yet moments of true drama or insight rarely arrive. By telling the tale through all-too-artful prose, these postcards provide too few revelations.
The background to the novel's creation overshadows the story. The author's article for The Guardian about his own troubled childhood, ending with his parents decision to send him into psychiatric care provided gripping insight and balance. It has since been removed from the newspaper's website for copyright reasons, though it may just as well have been taken down for stealing the novel's thunder. We the Animals follows that same biographical path, but too often fudges the truth with posed artistry.
There's no doubting that Torres is a terrific writer and stylist. His poetic patois, the interior monologues and the never-patronising observations of the world through a child's eyes provide a fresh voice from page to page. But if the domestic abuse, post-Golding rambles and faded melancholy of the whole thing forms a kinetic thrust, I missed it. And while We the Animals becomes a coming out tale gone wrong, the reader is given little of the insight or self-questioning that such a process customarily prompts.
For all the dirt and directness of Torres' prose, his debut novel feels somewhat artificial. By relishing the telling, he mars the tale. It's a bizarre contradiction in narrative. Because what is described is clearly heavily informed by real experience.... Read more ›
The background to the novel's creation overshadows the story. The author's article for The Guardian about his own troubled childhood, ending with his parents decision to send him into psychiatric care provided gripping insight and balance. It has since been removed from the newspaper's website for copyright reasons, though it may just as well have been taken down for stealing the novel's thunder. We the Animals follows that same biographical path, but too often fudges the truth with posed artistry.
There's no doubting that Torres is a terrific writer and stylist. His poetic patois, the interior monologues and the never-patronising observations of the world through a child's eyes provide a fresh voice from page to page. But if the domestic abuse, post-Golding rambles and faded melancholy of the whole thing forms a kinetic thrust, I missed it. And while We the Animals becomes a coming out tale gone wrong, the reader is given little of the insight or self-questioning that such a process customarily prompts.
For all the dirt and directness of Torres' prose, his debut novel feels somewhat artificial. By relishing the telling, he mars the tale. It's a bizarre contradiction in narrative. Because what is described is clearly heavily informed by real experience.... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Simon Savidge Reads
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
`We The Animals' is on first glances a `coming of age tale', which I should admit from the start I am really not a fan of, as our unnamed narrator grows up and tells the story of his upbringing in upstate New York from the age of seven until he leaves home, or the nest as we might call it. Only if we use the nest analogy, this would be more a nest of vipers than a nest of fluffy ducklings because as we read on we begin to spot there are tensions and underlying unease in this family and there is an almost claustrophobic bond that the family, though it is even more so between the three children, all brothers, have created with one another.
`We The Animals' is not simply a coming of age tale it is also, if a rather concerning image, an honest and believable portrayal of a family of our time but mostly it is the tale of someone coming to terms with individuality. This is why I admitted it so much, it made me ask a lot of questions. When do you start to realise your parents might not be the idealised perfect people you have created in your head? When do sibling rivalries begin and the bonds of brotherhood get severed? How does conflicting parental culture (in this case white and Puerto Rican) affect your bearings on the world? There is a lot discussed in a book which sits just on the borders where novel and novella meet at 144 pages long, though don't let that fool you into thinking that there is no plot or that this novel doesn't have a sense of the epic about it as its quite the opposite.
Using almost short story like chapters (and they even have titles like a short story collection would) we are given snapshots from our unnamed narrators childhood; this to me was one of the most brilliant things Torres does with this book.... Read more ›
`We The Animals' is not simply a coming of age tale it is also, if a rather concerning image, an honest and believable portrayal of a family of our time but mostly it is the tale of someone coming to terms with individuality. This is why I admitted it so much, it made me ask a lot of questions. When do you start to realise your parents might not be the idealised perfect people you have created in your head? When do sibling rivalries begin and the bonds of brotherhood get severed? How does conflicting parental culture (in this case white and Puerto Rican) affect your bearings on the world? There is a lot discussed in a book which sits just on the borders where novel and novella meet at 144 pages long, though don't let that fool you into thinking that there is no plot or that this novel doesn't have a sense of the epic about it as its quite the opposite.
Using almost short story like chapters (and they even have titles like a short story collection would) we are given snapshots from our unnamed narrators childhood; this to me was one of the most brilliant things Torres does with this book.... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Acorn
Format:Hardcover
The cast of characters? It's a family: Paps, Ma and three sons, Manny, Joel and the narrator who is the youngest. Paps was only sixteen and Ma fourteen when she got pregnant with Manny, and a month before she gave birth they ran away from Brooklyn, New York, to Texas to get married.
So the novel is set in Texas? No, in upstate New York. The Texas trip was due to the marriage laws there which allow teenage weddings. The family in this novel lives in cheap working class housing and are somewhat apart from their neighbours because Paps is Puerto Rican, Ma white, and the boys - as Paps puts it - neither one thing nor the other.
A semi-rural family idyll then? Hardly. Paps is abusive and violent to both Ma and the boys, and Ma is a `confused goose of a woman'. Most of the story is told when the narrator is seven years old and his brothers a few years older. Paps and Ma are failures as parents, stuck in dead-end jobs, and only Ma manages to work regularly. The boys for much of the time are left to fend for themselves, playing and fighting, ganging up on each other or those around them, but it is very clear that they are a close-knit band. They are the `animals' of the title.
A bit like Lord of the Flies with the parents still there? That did come to mind once or twice as the boys went feral. Also, like Golding, Torres fills the story with symbols and spare prose, though these are less capably managed.
Are we in po-mo land or is there a plot? There are many short chapters, each a fragment of the past, and all of them memories of the narrator. They run in chronological order, with the ending stepping forward to the time when the boys are in late teenage.... Read more ›
So the novel is set in Texas? No, in upstate New York. The Texas trip was due to the marriage laws there which allow teenage weddings. The family in this novel lives in cheap working class housing and are somewhat apart from their neighbours because Paps is Puerto Rican, Ma white, and the boys - as Paps puts it - neither one thing nor the other.
A semi-rural family idyll then? Hardly. Paps is abusive and violent to both Ma and the boys, and Ma is a `confused goose of a woman'. Most of the story is told when the narrator is seven years old and his brothers a few years older. Paps and Ma are failures as parents, stuck in dead-end jobs, and only Ma manages to work regularly. The boys for much of the time are left to fend for themselves, playing and fighting, ganging up on each other or those around them, but it is very clear that they are a close-knit band. They are the `animals' of the title.
A bit like Lord of the Flies with the parents still there? That did come to mind once or twice as the boys went feral. Also, like Golding, Torres fills the story with symbols and spare prose, though these are less capably managed.
Are we in po-mo land or is there a plot? There are many short chapters, each a fragment of the past, and all of them memories of the narrator. They run in chronological order, with the ending stepping forward to the time when the boys are in late teenage.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Shock Treatment
I had to read this book because two prudes at my San Antonio, Texas, USA, book club called it filthy. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ken Brimhall
3.0 out of 5 stars
We the Animals mini review
The book gives vivid descriptions of the authors unpredictable family life which is juxtaposed with mental and physical abuse. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jordan Small
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read
I wanted to write a short review in the hope that it might encourage more people to read this great book. Read more
Published 6 months ago by geogjames
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Brutal Thing
Get ready: this slim little book will drive an iron wedge into your soul.
Justin Torres's debut novel has already been highly praised by authors such as Michael... Read more
Justin Torres's debut novel has already been highly praised by authors such as Michael... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Gideon
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tremendous first book
I like films that rely on the actors and the acting, the words and the relationships. This book in a crisp immediate way tells the story of the three, in a way that is funny and... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Vincent Creelan
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book.
In an interesting and edgy style, this book had me hooked from very early on. The story seems to tumble out and has a number of very sweet moments.
Published 14 months ago by Tim Kidd
4.0 out of 5 stars
scenes from childhood - but a childhood you'd probably rather not have...
This short book presents a number of vividly recollected scenes from a childhood - in upstate New York, the dust jacket says (I must have missed the precise location as I read it)... Read more
Published 14 months ago by William Jordan
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