![]() ![]() ![]() Do we really want to know what the pigs we cram into cages away from sunlight are thinking? Do we want to understand the wrenching horror of mice bred in their thousands to be killed? Do we want to know what the animals we keep close to us, bound to us for their sustenance, actually think of us? It would be difficult to own a pet, after reading this book. McKay’s is a simple proposition, but one with profound and fascinating implications: what if a virus could give humans the ability to communicate with animals? To understand the messages conveyed by their calls, their movements, their scents? Her answer – the fallout she envisions – is not only convincing, but deeply unsettling. One of the most important tasks for a writer of speculative fiction is to establish convincing and internally consistent parameters for the subject of their speculation. In this particular apocalypse, the foundational threat to human social structures is the emergence of unprecedented insight into the non-human world. ![]() But Laura McKay’s novel, despite its timeliness, is not so intimately tied to the current moment – its vision is broader, and far more interesting. A novel about a ‘zoanthropathic’ super-flu precipitating wholesale social breakdown, published in the panicked first months of a zooanotic global pandemic. It might be tempting to see the timing of publication as serendipitous, or portentous, depending on your perspective. The Animals in that Country was published in March 2020. ![]()
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