We the Animals (2011) by Justin Torres

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

We the Animals (2011)

by Justin Torres

Baldswinville, New York

New York: 8/105

Upstate: 7/23

  Justin Torres just won the National Book Award for his novel, Blackouts.  We the Animals is his first book- also marketed as a novel though the circumstances- an LGBT childhood in upstate New York with two older brothers, a white mother and a Puerto Rican father, largely mirror his biographical details.  This book also ends with the narrator being shipped off to a mental institution by his family, which is also a theme in Blackouts. 

   We the Animals reminded me of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong- which is another poetically inclined bildungsroman about being an LGBT child of immigrants in a decaying, New England-rust belt milieu.  I know, New York isn't New England but honestly if you cut off the northern third of the state it could just as well into Vermont or New Hampshire.   We the Animals is a slim volume- 144 pages or a three hour audiobook.  I was excited to see the Audiobook was instantly available- sometime with recent prize winners their earlier works see heavy demand and limited supply.    I wasn't shocked, exactly, but it was surprising that both books written by Puerto Rican authors in the 1,0001 Novels: A Library of America feature women who start giving birth at 14 years old.  In this book, the parents elope to Texas when the Mother is 14 and the father 16. 

  Again, the father figure is violent towards all members of his family and it is simply acceptable to all involved.  There is one chapter in this book where the mother briefly contemplates leaving the abusive father but generally speaking the state of affairs seems acceptable to the family.  It is a frequent characteristic of relationships involving domestic violence that there is sympathy for the abuser on the part of the abused- nothing specifically Puerto Rican about that. 

  We the Animals is the fourth of fifth books set in and around Syracuse- so far none of them have done so much as mention the existence of Syracuse itself- they all take place in small towns set around Syracuse.  I couldn't tell you a single fact about Syracuse based on the books from that region selected in the 1,001 Novels project.