In her acknowledgements, Emily Bitto thanks her publishers for letting her keep “(almost) all my baroque sentences intact” – and it’s true that the start of this vivid novel can be meandering in its decadent lushness. But as heartbroken 21-year-old Will’s helter-skelter journey away from Melbourne, towards New York and the promise of ‘finding himself’ and discovering the ‘meaning’ of life in our late stage-capitalist world starts narrowing to a point set in a menagerie of exotic animals in an otherwise nondescript town in the heartland of America, you’re going to wish that you could dial back the implacable momentum. The ending is inevitable, devastating, enraging – if you’re not left questioning by this second offering from the Stella Prize-winning author, you weren’t paying attention.
Reviewed by Mindful Puzzles Editor, Donnay Torr.
