Almost Animal
On behalf of: Spiegel & Grau
A ferocious, incandescent memoir about motherhood, liberation, and the natural world—following one woman’s journey to reclaim her wildest self. For fans of H is for Hawk, Wild and Educated.
Growing up in Utah, a descendant of its earliest Mormon inhabitants, Amy Irvine spent her life fighting against the patriarchy that was her inheritance. The one place she felt truly herself was in the natural world. She climbed red rock, skied backcountry powder, and fought wildfires. But after the birth of her daughter, she found herself in a situation uncannily similar to those of her pioneer forebears: isolated on a remote mesa, with a husband who was often gone, a child who was frequently and mysteriously ill, and a once-remarkable life that was growing smaller and smaller.
After a case of postpartum depression so intense it resembled zoochosis, the madness of a trapped animal, Irvine began the process of unearthing her deepest self and finding a more authentic connection with her child. Over the years that followed, encounters with animals—wild and domestic, predator and prey—led her forward, from a horseback showdown with a mountain lion to a more intimate run-in with the misunderstood black widow spider. And searching for guidance, she looked to the women who came before her: the tough, complicated ancestors whose lives, Irvine learned, are a testament to the freedom, loneliness, and myth-making of the West.
Gloriously written and fiercely felt, Almost Animal places Amy Irvine among our greatest writers on the bonds between the human and natural worlds—including Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, and Wendell Berry—as well as contemporary chroniclers of the West, from Cheryl Strayed to Tara Westover.
Reviews
“Full throttle, full immersion, full honesty, all surrender. Almost Animal is an electric work of personal archaeology, a layered reckoning with lineage and landscape, claustrophobia and wilderness, what we receive and what we disrupt—full of vigils, cliff-faces, dreams, vistas, terrors, creatures, and guides. This book is unafraid of darkness; it goes spelunking right into those darkest nights of the soul as caverns full of history and truth. Amy Irvine is clear-eyed in her self-interrogations and full-throated in her love songs. This is a capacious, generous, and genuinely searching book—I’m so grateful that it’s here.”—Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
“[…] Amy Irvine is a relentless and fearless truth teller, full of rage and love, bighearted and more than a little feral. Her beautifully forged, ferociously rendered story of fracture and reassemblage will stop your heart, will make you want to ride the war horses into battle on behalf of every Earthly creature, be it child, mountain lion, or snake. […] ”—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country
“Amy Irvine’s explorations of the shadow side of Mormon history are a revelatory lantern fearlessly exploring a black hole. […] Almost Animal is a wondrous read from an author of remarkable strength.”—David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K
“Amy Irvine’s voice runs at a hot, wild pitch, masterful and steeped in ghosts. In Almost Animal, she’s written a starting place for healing our upended selves, families, culture, world. If anyone can forge a way through these crazy twists and turns, through fractured desert and the beasts and dreams that dwell there, it’s her.”—Craig Childs, author of The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
“In Almost Animal, Amy Irvine is a mother on horseback, fiercely and intimately navigating the destructive myths of the American West that obscure both profound violence and indispensable lessons for survival. […] Irvine’s prose is as trenchant as it is luminous. This is an astonishing, unforgettable memoir—a must-read for all who are contending with how historical trauma lives within us.”—Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks
“With a formidable intellect and gutsy vulnerability, Amy Irvine explores and connects her Mormon lineage to her motherly struggles raising a sick daughter in the American West. Readers will marvel at this tough mountain woman for her tenacious love of her daughter, her intuitive trust of the earth’s healing powers, and her ease with animals of all kinds. A raging river of a story, Almost Animal will inspire readers with its wisdom and strong environmental values.”—Deborah Jackson Taffa, author of Whiskey Tender