The Last Animal

September 2, 2013
This uneven debut collection of stories sets the familiar motifs of infidelity, heartbreak, and loss against unfamiliar and often exciting backdrops, and successfully interlocks human foibles with a single theme: the profound coloring of our relationships by our experience of the natural world. In "Terror Birds," the dissolution of a marriage comes to a violent conclusion on an ostrich farm; in "Captivity," an octopus handler becomes caught up in a mystery surrounding her missing brother; and in "Dharma at the Gate," a girl with an emotionally abusive boyfriend writes in her journal, "Without my dog... I would not know how to feel certain things. Without him, I do not believe I would ever feel joy." Varied in perspective and setting, the stories take on an almost mythical quality. Unfortunately, while the stories and the people telling them are diverse, the prose is not, and midway through the collection, it becomes saccharine and cloying. Every character sounds the same and seems to speak through Geni's narrative voice, which is particularly a problem in "Terror Birds," where the shifting of perspective from mother to son underscores Geni's inability to break free of her own stylistic tics. This collection shows brooding promise but lacks the right filter through which to render it.

Starred review from September 1, 2013
Human predicaments are complemented by the wild natural world in this excellent debut story collection from Chicago-based author Geni. The characters and events here are unusual and far-reaching, but Geni's careful craftsmanship renders them immediate and real. Each story is threaded with page-turning, deeply felt tension, yet each has also been planted with a seed of magic in varying stages of growth. In the collection's award-winning piece, "Captivity," the narrator works at the Chicago Aquarium, specializing in octopuses, which she feeds in-tank, wetsuit-clad, while haunted by her missing brother. In "Terror Birds," an ordinary family drama plays out with high stakes on an ostrich farm in the desert. "Isaiah on Sunday" and "In the Spirit Room" explore the loss of parents; "Landscaping" (the seed of magic here growing away from realism into striking lyricism) and "Fire Blight" show heartache from the parents' sides. Broken families are a theme, and the people in these stories experience the fallout with unflinching awareness. Likewise, Geni is not afraid to make readers sit with an uncomfortable situation or watch characters struggle with difficult decisions. "Dharma at the Gate" follows a teenage girl and her dog as she contemplates a relationship that's holding her back; readers will ache for her freedom. "The Girls of Apache Bryn Mawr" has an anonymous narrator--the protagonists are bunked together in a camp cabin the summer their counselor disappears. "The Last Animal" and "Silence" center on older characters looking for a kind of closure, and both have a quieter tension. An entrancing collection, recommended even for those who generally shy away from short story.

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Starred review from August 1, 2013

The short stories in Geni's debut collection beautifully reveal how exposure to nature helps people in emotional pain to recover. In each well-researched piece, Geni vividly depicts the setting, as well as the animals or plants that play important roles. For example, in the title story, Delilah's experiences at an exotic Mexican beach allow her finally to make peace with the husband who deserted her years earlier. "In the Spirit Room" is set in the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC, where both Max and his mother are employed until she falls ill and passes away. After the funeral, Max decides to live at the museum and sleep in her workroom, the herbarium. By engrossing himself in her work, he is able to accept her death and move forward. VERDICT All ten stories here are wonderfully written, with precise language and a true compassion for the hardships of the characters. Highly recommended; readers will eagerly anticipate Geni's first novel.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
Geni's first book puts us on notice. Here is a fiction writer who perceives the many forms of consciousness at work on the planet. In shrewd, sure stories, Geni registers the life force of trees, deciphers the confusion of human emotions, and considers the mystery of our interactions with other species. Terror Birds is a startlingly intense and original tale of a young boy living in the scouring Arizona desert on an ostrich farm and feeling compelled to intervene, whatever the risk, in his parents' marital discord. Dharma at the Gate is a chilling, brilliantly resolved story of a high-school senior happiest alone with her dog but saddled with a desperately manipulative, self-destructive boyfriend. One of the strangest, most resonant form of interspecies sympathy is found in Captivity, in which Mara, shadowed by her brother's inexplicable absence, works at a Chicago aquarium, enthralled by Falco, a highly intelligent octopus. Endangerment, disappearance, isolation, love adrift, the attempt to hold on to and define lifeGeni illuminates each condition and effort with keen realism and empathetic imagination to wondrously disquieting effect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)