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The spellbinding debut novel from the winner of the National Book Award: three brothers come of age in a poverty stricken town in upstate New York.
Three brothers tear their way through childhood - smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn - he's Puerto Rican, she's white - and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another.
From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful and highly praised debut novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful. Written in magical language with unforgettable images, this is a stunning exploration of the viscerally charged landscape of growing up, how deeply we are formed by our earliest bonds, and how we are ultimately propelled at escape velocity toward our futures.
Author: Justin Torres
Paperback Published 7 January 2024 145 pages
Reviews:
"A novel so honest, poetic, and tough that it makes you reexamine what it means to love and to hurt." - O, The Oprah Magazine
"The communal howl of three young brothers sustains this sprint of a novel . . . A kind of incantation." - The New Yorker
This fiery ode to boyhood tracks three brothers as they tear their way through childhood, growing up in the shadow of Paps and Ma and learning a kind of love that is serious, dangerous, unshakeable, glorious. A stunning exploration of how we are formed by our earliest bonds, 'We the Animals' bears witness to Justin Torres's serious talent and heralds him as a brilliant, ferocious new voice! - Michael Cunningham
"A miracle in concentrated pages, you are going to read it again and again." - Dorothy Allison
"Rumbles with lyric dynamite... Torres is a savage new talent." - Benjamin Percy, Esquire