They've been with us forever - prowling
the smoky roadhouse dives that are their watering holes and hunting
grounds. Predators, lurking amidst the human herd. Changing shape
at will. Lusting for blood and meat. They are gods in the wild. Gods
in disguise. And they feed on the spark inside each of us.
Syd was just another lonely working class guy singing the dying steel-town blues. Then he met Nora.
She's sensual. Amoral. Erotic. Eternal. And she's luring Syd across
the line that few can cross... and even fewer survive: the line that
separates man from the beast within.
Animals. There's a little bit of them in all of us.
Book Review:
Animals by John Skipp and Craig Spector
by Paul V. Wargelin
Meet Syd Jarrett. His thirty-fifth year on Earth is fast approaching
and his accepted state of existence in Monville, Pennsylvania is less
than inspiring. Still nursing a broken heart over a shattered marriage,
the only two constants in his life are making minimum wage as a blue
collar grunt in temporary hard labor assignments, and spending his
evenings at the local honky-tonk where he can revel in live R&B
and the ambition-crushing power of booze.
Shocked out of his melancholy-inspired routine one morning after
slamming into a deer with his car, Syd follows the wounded creature's
trail into the woods to put it out of its misery, only to encounter
a monstrous wolf feasting on it. Believing he's next on the menu, Syd
defiantly stands his ground, prepared to go down fighting. The moment
man and beast make eye contact, something personal and primal passes
between them. Then the wolf drags the rest of its meal deeper into
the forest and vanishes, leaving Syd perplexed and elated at his miraculous
survival.
While trying to fathom the instinctual connection he felt with the
wolf, Syd unknowingly encounters it again when he meets Nora-an even
deadlier predator in human form than in her werewolf one. With a thirst
for Southern Comfort and an appetite for carnal passion, she's the
embodiment of feminine sexuality, walking into Syd's heart and taking
possession of it before he could blink. Exotic and ferocious, Nora
is not a woman who should be attracted to Syd, but she's already sensed
his potential from their previous encounter in the woods. Pulled into
her intoxicating orbit, Syd loses himself in their physical lust, only
to be dragged back to a reality where Nora's unpredictable mood swings
erupt with violent fury. The danger of loving someone so damaged by
life appeals and repels Syd at the same time, but he is falling for
her and wants nothing more than to offer protection and safety from
her demons.
But there's only one demon that truly frightens Nora. His name is
Vic. He's the Big Bad Werewolf who unleashed Nora's true nature, and
he's been loving and tormenting her in a vicious cycle for more than
seventy years-straying off to satisfy his sexual and sustenance hungers,
then giving chase to reclaim her, mutilating anyone who crosses his
path. On the run once again, Nora will stop at nothing to set the animal
inside Syd free, regardless of what it will do to his sanity as long
as she can use him against Vic.
John Skipp and Craig Spector don't reinvent the werewolf story so
much as obliterate it. Forget the gypsy curses, full moons, werewolf
bites, and silver bullets. The werewolves in Animals accept and embrace
the bestial side of their natures, not reject it, but still find themselves
conflicted by their all too human desires and emotions. As much as
Nora and Vic prowl around, stalking and slaughtering prey with wild
abandon, both yearn for a certain domesticity in their lives and wish
to find a single mate for life, like real wolves.
Syd also seeks his soul mate, but is unable to immerse himself in
the quest. Embittered by his past, clinging to the vestiges of a life
that no longer exists, he is a victim of his own inertia. He's a flawed
but likable protagonist who earns our sympathy, as well as our derision
from one situation to the next. Nora finds Syd at the crossroads and
reminds him of what it means to be truly alive, only to inflict him
with the unfortunate damage that seems inevitable with every relationship.
Leaving out the supernatural aspects, Animals is an emotionally charged
novel about love in all its beauty and ugliness, how men and women
turn each other on and tear each other apart in equal measure, how
trust and affection turns to suspicion and anger, how abuse becomes
an acceptable substitute for loneliness, how your best friend can become
your worst enemy, leaving fragile and fearful souls in its wake.
Like their characters, Messers Skipp and Spector embrace their animal
sides, unflinching in their depictions of graphic violence that is
a part of nature (human and otherwise). They also know that the pain
of having your heart ripped out by a werewolf pales in comparison to
the pain of a broken heart-for some, an open wound that may never heal.
