A Loving, Faithful Animal: A Novel - Tapa blanda

Praise for Josephine Rowe
Winner of the 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Prize
"Rowe's stories are potent machines of emotion, miraculous for the human vastness they sound by the sparest and surest of means." --Wells Tower, author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
"Spectacular . . . when I read her stories of drifting, of heartbreak and aftermath and travel and displacement, it seems to me that 'where is home?' is the underlying question. For some of us, there's no clear answer to that question. In our work, we can only continue to ask, and, in Rowe's work, the asking is both graceful and profound." --Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
Praise for A LOVING, FAITHFUL ANIMAL
"A subtle and haunting meditation on childhood, escape, the bonds and the limits of family, and the long reach of trauma. Rowe is a serious talent, and her debut novel is both gorgeous and stunning." --Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
"A Loving, Faithful Animal lured me in with astonishing, poetic prose, and a glimpse of an Australia I don't always see in fiction. But the true thrill of the novel is the carousel of haunting characters Josephine Rowe creates with unbelievable precision. An unflinching look at the ways we fail the people we love, at the cruelty of family, its toxicity, and beauty. The book is a deep, multi-faceted portrait of the inheritance of damage, one that left me aching and inspired." --Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
"Josephine Rowe writes like someone who, having been quiet a long time, has thought carefully and viciously about what must be said. In this flinty debut, Rowe fashions a string of refractory surfaces--the family members of a veteran--to remind us just how far, into love and time, the atrocity of war will reach." -- Kathleen Alcott, author of Infinite Home
"A slim novel packed with delicious prose, easy to lose yourself in and hard to leave behind." -- Amelia Gray, author of Gutshot
"Rowe's language is trance-inducing. Do right by yourself, nest down and prepare to be swept away by these characters, their respective dilapidations, in this mesmerizing, incandescent novel. Masterful." --Brendan Jones, author of The Alaskan Laundry
"Deft, lyrical and deeply moving." --Wayne Macauley, author of The Cook
"A compelling and singular emotional experience ... Haunting ... Rowe makes it clear from the first paragraph of this clenched, resolute study of family damage that sentiment has no place here. She will reveal something harder and truer." --Kate Holden, Australian Book Review
"Rowe's much-anticipated debut novel dives into the heart of a family attempting to salvage themselves from the scars of the past. Brutal and tender, this is a dark domestic drama battling with the wreckage of the Vietnam War." --Robert Bound, Monocle magazine

Praise for Josephine Rowe
Winner of the 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Prize
"Rowe's stories are potent machines of emotion, miraculous for the human vastness they sound by the sparest and surest of means." --Wells Tower, author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
"Spectacular . . . when I read her stories of drifting, of heartbreak and aftermath and travel and displacement, it seems to me that 'where is home?' is the underlying question. For some of us, there's no clear answer to that question. In our work, we can only continue to ask, and, in Rowe's work, the asking is both graceful and profound." --Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
Praise for A LOVING, FAITHFUL ANIMAL
-A subtle and haunting meditation on childhood, escape, the bonds and the limits of family, and the long reach of trauma. Rowe is a serious talent, and her debut novel is both gorgeous and stunning.- --Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
-A Loving, Faithful Animal lured me in with astonishing, poetic prose, and a glimpse of an Australia I don't always see in fiction. But the true thrill of the novel is the carousel of haunting characters Josephine Rowe creates with unbelievable precision. An unflinching look at the ways we fail the people we love, at the cruelty of family, its toxicity, and beauty. The book is a deep, multi-faceted portrait of the inheritance of damage, one that left me aching and inspired.- --Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
-Josephine Rowe writes like someone who, having been quiet a long time, has thought carefully and viciously about what must be said. In this flinty debut, Rowe fashions a string of refractory surfaces--the family members of a veteran--to remind us just how far, into love and time, the atrocity of war will reach.- -- Kathleen Alcott, author of Infinite Home
-A slim novel packed with delicious prose, easy to lose yourself in and hard to leave behind.- -- Amelia Gray, author of Gutshot
-Rowe's language is trance-inducing. Do right by yourself, nest down and prepare to be swept away by these characters, their respective dilapidations, in this mesmerizing, incandescent novel. Masterful.- --Brendan Jones, author of The Alaskan Laundry
-Deft, lyrical and deeply moving.- --Wayne Macauley, author of The Cook
-A compelling and singular emotional experience ... Haunting ... Rowe makes it clear from the first paragraph of this clenched, resolute study of family damage that sentiment has no place here. She will reveal something harder and truer.- --Kate Holden, Australian Book Review
-Rowe's much-anticipated debut novel dives into the heart of a family attempting to salvage themselves from the scars of the past. Brutal and tender, this is a dark domestic drama battling with the wreckage of the Vietnam War.- --Robert Bound, Monocle magazine

Praise for Josephine Rowe
Winner of the 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Prize
-Rowe's stories are potent machines of emotion, miraculous for the human vastness they sound by the sparest and surest of means.- --Wells Tower, author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
-Spectacular . . . when I read her stories of drifting, of heartbreak and aftermath and travel and displacement, it seems to me that 'where is home?' is the underlying question. For some of us, there's no clear answer to that question. In our work, we can only continue to ask, and, in Rowe's work, the asking is both graceful and profound.- --Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
Praise for A LOVING, FAITHFUL ANIMAL

"I found myself considering those rare things only books can do, feats outside the purview of film or fine art . . . Gorgeous." —Samantha Hunt, The New York Times Book Review

It is New Year’s Eve 1990, in a small town in southeast Australia. Ru’s father, Jack, one of thousands of Australians once conscripted to serve in the Vietnam War, has disappeared. This time Ru thinks he might be gone for good. As rumors spread of a huge black cat stalking the landscape beyond their door, the rest of the family is barely holding on. Ru’s sister, Lani, is throwing herself into sex, drugs, and dangerous company. Their mother, Evelyn, is escaping into memories of a more vibrant youth. And meanwhile there is Les, Jack’s inscrutable brother, who seems to move through their lives like a ghost, earning both trust and suspicion.

A Loving, Faithful Animal is an incandescent portrait of one family searching for what may yet be redeemable from the ruins of war. Tender, brutal, and heart-stopping in its beauty, this novel marks the arrival in the United States of Josephine Rowe, the winner of the 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Prize and one of Australia’s most extraordinary young writers.