The God of Animals
Aryn Kyle, 2007
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416533252
Summary
When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles — a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch. As the hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds and bills pile up, Alice is torn between dreams of escaping the loneliness of her duty-filled life and a longing to help her father mend their family and the ranch.
To make ends meet, the Winstons board the pampered horses of rich neighbors, and for the first time Alice confronts the power and security that class and wealth provide. As her family and their well-being become intertwined with the lives of their clients, Alice is drawn into an adult world of secrets and hard truths, and soon discovers that people — including herself — can be cruel, can lie and cheat, and every once in a while, can do something heartbreaking and selfless. Ultimately, Alice and her family must weather a devastating betrayal and a shocking, violent series of events that will test their love and prove the power of forgiveness.
A wise and astonishing novel about the different guises of love and the often steep tolls on the road to adulthood, The God of Animals is a haunting, unforgettable debut. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 22, 1978
• Where—Peoria, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Colorado State University; M.F.A.,
University of Montana, 2003
• Awards—The Rona Jaffe Award, 2005; National Magazine
Award in Fiction, 2005
• Currently—lives in Missoula, Montana
Aryn Kyle is a graduate of the University of Montana writing program. Her first published short story, "Foaling Season" (which became the first chapter of her debut novel, The God of Animals), won a National Magazine Award for Fiction for the Atlantic Monthly in 2004. Other stories by her have appeared in the Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New American Voices 2005, and Ploughshares.
In 2005 she was awarded the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, which is given to women writers at an early stage in their careers who demonstrate exceptional talent and promise. She was born in Illinois, but spent most of her childhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, and now lives in Missoula, Montana. (Author biography courtesy of MacMillan.)
Extras
From a 2007 Barnes & Noble interview:
When asked what book influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
It's impossible to name one. There have been so many books that have influenced my life—so many books that have influenced the way that I think about the world.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood—is probably the first book that I remember as being truly important to me. I was fourteen when I read it, and when I finished, I remember feeling like the world was a larger place than it had been before. Like I was seeing it all for the first time. For weeks afterward, I walked around feeling like I had been asleep for a long time and was suddenly wide awake. It was one of the first books I'd read that really made me want to be a writer. Other favorites would include...
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson—Her prose is perfection. I was assigned this novel for a college class, and during that time I followed my roommate around our apartment, reading lines aloud to her while she was trying to do laundry or clean the kitchen. I think she wanted to strangle me.
That Night by Alice McDermott—McDermott takes a subject so familiar and makes it absolutely mythic through her telling. I first read this on an overseas flight. It's such a slim little novel that I finished it long before my plane landed. I was so overwhelmed by the book that after I finished it, I turned back to the first page and read it a second time through.
Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides—The scope of point of view throughout this novel is really incredible. I don't use the term "Great American Novel" lightly, but I can think of no other to describe this book. If I didn't love it so much, I'd be insanely jealous.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf— It seems that everyone I meet prefers Mrs. Dalloway, which I liked just fine. But there are parts of To the Lighthouse which have stayed with me long after. I love the way that the abandoned summer house becomes its own character and the deaths of people become, literally, parenthetical.
Escapes by Joy Williams—Oh, Joy Williams is my hero! Seriously, I want to be her when I grow up. Her short stories are absolutely devastating (in a good way).
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov— I won't embarrass myself by trying to say anything new or insightful about Lolita. It's simply an amazing, beautiful book. I reread it every few years or so, and I always have a moment or two when I think I should just give up on writing altogether. With books like this already out there, I wonder sometimes if we really need more.
Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll—This is a favorite of mine from childhood, but I've read it more than once as an adult and I still love it. I can't explain exactly why, but there's something about the darkness and nonsense that, for me, really captures the isolation and confusion of childhood.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller—In general, I'm not a big fan of war books, which is why you should trust me when I say that this book is something remarkable. I first read it at seventeen and was literally awed by the impact it had on me. Heller was writing about World War II, but really, he could have been writing about any war. Every war. Especially in our current political climate, I think that this book goes beyond great; it's important.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen—I'm a true fan of each of Jane Austen's books, but this is my favorite. I love the sharpness of Austen's wit, the snarky bite of her humor. I wish she was alive so that we could be friends.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt —I started reading this book and didn't come up for air until I had finished. Clear the decks before you read it. Really. If you have to put it down to go to work, feed the kids, answer the phone, or bathe, you're going to curse your life. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Some people seem fated to live in untenable situations. In this beautiful first novel, Alice Winston, 12 years old, has grown up in one. She lives in a town in the Western American desert, which — although it can be exquisite — doesn't always take kindly to the existence of humans. Her mother has been a victim of something like postpartum depression for as long as Alice can remember, and stays in a back bedroom for weeks on end. Her father, Joe, whom some would call a dreamer, maintains a stable for show horses, except that not many customers want to share in the show horse dream. Joe dwells in an imagined world where he gets to do exactly what he wants to do: purchase horses, breed them, break them, train them, then wait for a steady stream of wealthy little girls to ride them in shows. It should make him rich. It worked, more or less, for his father and grandfather.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
Horses and lost love propel this confident debut novel about Alice Winston, a 12-year-old loner with family troubles in Desert Valley, Colo. Her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was a baby; her father struggles to keep their horse ranch solvent; and her beautiful older sister, Nona, has eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Alice resists befriending the rich girl who takes riding lessons from her father, becomes obsessed with a classmate who drowns in a nearby canal and entangles herself with adults whose motives are suspect. Kyle imbues her protagonist with a genuine adolescent voice, but for all its fluidity, her prose lacks punch, and too often, somber descriptions of Colorado's weather and landscape are called upon to underscore themes of human isolation, jealousy and pain ("Tomorrow, the sun would rise and deaden the land beneath its indifference"). The coupling of female adolescence with the stark West produces its share of harsh truths, though Kyle overstates the moral: love hurts, it's a dangerous world and the truth is hard to swallow.
Publishers Weekly
Kyle's novel begins as adolescent narrator Alice Winston recounts the almost simultaneous departure of her sister, Nona, who elopes with a rodeo cowboy, and the drowning of Polly Cain, one of Alice's classmates. These events loom like specters over the rest of the novel, which brims with a confidence and assuredness atypical of a debut. In light of Nona's exodus, Alice becomes her father's primary assistant in tending the family's barn and her bedridden mother's intermediary to the outside world. Alice's penchant for prevarication-she makes a pretense of having been Polly Cain's best friend-helps her repel this harsh reality. In Alice, Kyle has created an adolescent voice that is charming and authentic but that also has its irksome tics: surprising events always inspire such hyperbolic responses as "the air around me sucked to the rims of the earth" and "Everything was coming undone the entire world breaking into pieces beneath me." In the long run, though, this is a carp, as the voice exerts an irresistible pull. The prospect of other people leaving—Alice's father with a woman he trains—and the revelation of characters' secrets keep the reader glued to the story. Highly recommended for all public libraries. — David Doerrer, Library Journal
Library Journal
Growing pains and the loss of innocence on a desert ranch. Kyle's debut tracks the complicated, often punitive business of love from the preternaturally mature perspective of 12-year-old Alice Winston, whose father, Jody, knows more about horses than he does about running a successful business. After Alice's older sister Nona—a brilliant rider and useful advertisement for the ranch—runs off to marry a cowboy, Jody is reduced to stabling boarders (the fine horses of bored, rich women) and trying to teach untalented but wealthy Sheila Altman to win at horse shows. Alice's mother Marian is a bed-ridden depressive; Alice herself is preoccupied by the drowning of her schoolmate Polly Cain, who was in the habit of making phone calls to her English teacher, Mr. Delmar. Alice, lonely as well as sensitive to her father's financial problems and her mother's emotional ones, starts to make secret calls to Delmar herself. Kyle delivers the story in graceful, translucent prose, while the mood of the book is overwhelmingly bleak and steadily focused on the gathering storm. Fearful expectations are eventually realized as a sequence of disasters unfolds, starting with a horrific riding accident that leaves Jody's possible lover Patty Jo badly damaged. Next, Delmar leaves and Alice, in distress, reveals to Sheila her father's infidelities. Patty Jo's accident precipitates the ranch's ruin and a family argument brings about further cruelty, this time leading to the agonizing destruction of a horse. Although an unlikely gift leaves Alice with enough money to go to college, and Kyle wraps up by offering some perspective, it's not exactly a happy ending. A talented writer's lyrical but oppressive first work.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Aryn Kyle chose to tell her story through the eyes of Alice, a twelve-year-old girl just learning about the adult world. What do you think of that choice? Does her youth and inexperience make her vision clearer? More vivid?
2. What is the significance of the title? Who or what is the God of animals? What do the characters' interactions with horses demonstrate about human nature, power, and the natural world?
3. Alice struggles to make sense of her family and her world, andthe Winstons' tendency to keep secrets and withhold the truth doesn't make it easy for her. What does she learn about her family, and in turn, about herself as the novel progresses? What did you think was most revelatory?
4. Alice fixates on her dead classmate, Polly Cain, and invents a friendship with her that never existed. Why do you think she seeks entrance into the life Polly left behind? What conclusion does Alice reach about what happened to Polly?
5. "My mother had spent nearly my whole life in her bedroom" (3). Discuss how this affects the Winston family dynamic. Why do you think Marian choose to live this way? Is it fair? Do you think her family accepts her or enables her? Or neither?
6. Joe Winston's plans for the ranch often don't come to fruition, yet he stays hopeful that his fortune will change. How would you describe Joe? What ties him to the ranch? What does Alice see that he doesn't?
7. What draws Alice to Mr. Delmar? She keeps calling him, though she acknowledges that "in some way I could not name, we weren't playing by the rules. Eventually, there would have to be a price." (185) What is the price? Does their relationship do Alice harm or good?
8. Patty Jo separates herself from the Catfish. Why is she different? How do she and Joe help, but also hurt, each other? How does she affect Alice?
9. Alice surprises everyone, most of all herself, when she rides Darling at the horse show. What does she discover in "that moment of connection" (194) that she had never understood before? Is she better able to understand her father and Nona's connection with horses? Why do you think she's unable to replicate that moment with Darling again?
10. Patty Jo states, "Marriage is the most expensive ticket to nowhere" (262). Does her bleak characterization of marriage hold true for the other married couples in the novel? Consider the marriages of Joe and Marian, Nona and Jerry, and Mr. and Mrs. Altman.
11. At the end of the novel, Alice says "the places we come from don't leave us as easily as we leave them" (304). For which character is this most true? What hold does the ranch have on each of the sisters?
12. Over the course of the summer, the lifestyles of the Altmans, Patty Jo, and the Catfish come into sharp contrast. What does Alice observe about what wealth and class can provide, and what they can't? What happens when some of the characters reach for something beyond what they are accustomed to?
13. Discuss the role of violence and cruelty in the novel. Is there something about the harshness of life on a ranch, or working with animals, that brings them closer to the surface? How does Alice deal with her father and grandfather's brutal acts? How might her own actions ultimately figure in to her feelings? Does she forgive them? Does she forgive herself? Why?
14. Horses play a part in some of the novel's most moving scenes. Take, for instance, when Alice retrieves Yellow Cap, Patty Jo's accident, and the weaning of the foals. Which were the most powerful? What did you learn about the characters in those scenes?
15. Kyle uses the changing seasons to give a loose structure to the novel, and the extremes of the climate and Colorado setting often coincide with pivotal events. How does Kyle use imagery and descriptions of the conditions to enhance the plot? Did you find this effective?
16. The God of Animals may be considered a coming-of-age novel in that many of its events force Alice to leave the innocence of childhood behind. Was there one that stood out? Does Kyle succeed in her portrayal of a girl on the brink of adulthood? What part of her portrayal felt most authentic to you?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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