Name: New Animal
ISBN: 9781760877798

Ella Baxter

A stunning, heartbreakingly funny debut novel from a brilliant new literary voice. Sex, death, grief, running away...only one of these makes Amelia feel like a new animal.

New Animal

'Ella Baxter's debut novel is drenched in sex and death . . . there's also much love . . . An intense, viscerally affecting book, with the quotient of tenderness to violence in an equal scale.' Sydney Morning Herald Amelia is no stranger to sex and death. Her job in her family's funeral parlour, doing make-up on the dead, might be unusual, but she's good at it. Life and warmth comes from the men she meets online - combining with someone else's body at night in order to become something else, at least for a while. But when a sudden loss severs her ties with someone she loves, Amelia sets off on a seventy-two-hour mission to outrun her grief - skipping out on the funeral, running away to stay with her father in Tasmania and experimenting on the local BDSM scene. There she learns more about sex, death, grief, and the different ways pain works its way through the body. It takes two fathers, a bruising encounter with a stranger and recognition of her own body's limits to bring Amelia back to herself. Deadpan, wise and heartbreakingly funny, Ella Baxter's New Animal is a stunning debut.

pissed me off and fucked me up at the right places

joys

Taous Merakchi

Tess McMahon

This book was a very raw and interesting story of a young woman’s experience and ways of coping through grief. I loved the mortuary work setting and Amelia’s meticulous passion for her job there. It was also filled with some lovely prose, and was a very quick read. 

Despite this, I just found some of the ‘confronting’ scenes a struggle to read through and somewhat unbelievable. I think the intention was deadpan humour but it just didn’t hit the mark for me!

Trigger warning: death, grief, mental health, sex addiction, BDSM

I was not expecting this to be such a heartwarming book. I thought it would be dark, filthy and disturbing. Even though it is about a young women facing a huge tragedy, it shows how she works through and ends bittersweet. Also focuses hugely on the connection between mind and body and how intertwined they are with everything we do. A very quick, but freeing read. 

New Animal

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