Animals

Starred review from October 19, 2015
A woman is torn between her best friend and her fiancé in this delayed-coming-of-age novel filled with debauchery and friendship. Laura and Tyler live in squalor in Manchester. They're overeducated, underemployed, and devoted to excess even though their friends set aside the partying life years earlier. Now 32, Laura does the least amount of work she can get away with at her job and is similarly apathetic about writing Bacon, her novel about a priest who falls in love with a talking pig. She is engaged to Jim, a teetotaling classical pianist who is often on the road. If Jim acts as Laura's superegoâquietly condemning her over-indulgenceâTyler is all id, sort of like a younger version of Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, and not all that quietly trying to sabotage Laura's upcoming wedding. Unsworth's writing is vividly vulgar, outrageously physical, and darkly funny. Portrayals of women behaving badly are often meant to be funny, but Tyler's aggressive self-destructiveness worries, even shocks, creating a memorable, deceptively poignant novel. Agent: Clare Conville, Conville and Walsh Literary Agency.