When We Were Animals

by Joshua Gaylord

Overview

In this chilling Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novel, a small, quiet Midwestern town is unremarkable save for one fact: when the teenagers reach a certain age, they run wild.

When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she wouldn't have guessed she would become a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown.

When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: as a well-behaved and over-achieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon. On these nights, adolescents run wild, destroying everything in their path.

Lumen resists. Promising her father she will never breach, she investigates the mystery of her community's traditions and the stories erased from the town record. But the more we learn about the town's past, the more we realize that Lumen's memories are harboring secrets of their own. A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.

Nominated for the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316297929
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	226,287
File size:	544 KB

About the Author

Joshua Gaylord grew up in Anaheim, California, and currently resides in New York City. He's the author of one previous novel, and under the pen name Alden Bell, two horror novels, including The Reapers are the Angels. He received his Ph.D. in 20th century American and British literature from NYU, and has taught both at NYU and the New School.

Editorial Reviews

02/16/2015
Lumen, the narrator of this disturbing fable from Gaylord (Hummingbirds) that explores the eternal tension between reason and the irrational, grows up with her widowed father in a small Appalachia-like town inhospitable to outsiders. During each full moon, the town’s teenagers “breach”; that is, they run naked and wild, fight with each other, and have sex in the woods. A late bloomer, she moves from childhood into adolescence after her peers; Lumen at first resolves never to breach, but as her hormones begin to stir, she finds herself torn between seemingly good Peter Meechum and wicked Blackhat Roy, who both debases and fascinates her. Gaylord, who has written two horror novels under the pen name Alden Bell, spikes his fitfully lovely language with noisome noir detail. In the end, some readers may regret that Lumen appears to accept that humanity is “a shameful and secret nastiness,” while she misses the honest simplicity of genuine human emotion, too deep for logical explanation. Agent: Eleanor Jackson, Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"An excellent, disturbing premise [with] superb prose . . . Under [Lumen's] spell, even the most staid reader would feel the impulse to run wild."—Shelf Awareness

"A compelling read that will likely resonate-after all, what's scarier than growing up?"—The Maine Edge

"A brilliant setup . . . A patient, thoughtful portrait of a girl progressing into womanhood, disguised as a work of speculative fiction"—Strange Horizons

"A fascinating look at a time during which we think we know everything, only to realize that we don't even know ourselves . . . When We Were Animals takes us on a journey that is at once completely foreign and utterly relatable."—Brooke Wylie, Examiner.com

"In ­Lumen, Gaylord creates an unforgettable and, well, luminous narrative voice, and his language captures the lush, dangerous possibilities of teenage nights to perfection. . . . this book deserves a breakout success like that of Jeffrey ­Eugenides's first novel, The Virgin Suicides."—Library Journal (starred)

"When We Were Animals conjures the dreamy satisfaction of revisiting the cult horror movies of your youth — things are familiar but they resound in new and unexpected ways, revealing subtle depths and poignancy. This is a dark, inventive and absorbing story, fittingly theatrical. It disturbs and entertains in equal measure."—Benjamin Wood, author of the Costa-shortlisted The Bellwether Revivals

"[A] coming-of-age tale with a gory twist . . . There's no stopping this bizarrely fascinating journey of dark self-discovery."—Kirkus Reviews

"Admit it: you remember an animal time in your own life. And if you think you don't, Joshua Gaylord and his book will lash you with it. When We Were Animals has the power to creep you out and, yes, turn you on."—John Griesemer, author of Signal & Noise

"Imagine if Twilight were well-written and grown up. Coming of age in this small town is less about braces, and more about street fights and lots of sex. Yes, it really is good."—TheSkimm

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2015
Gaylord (Hummingbirds), who also writes under the pen name Alden Bell (The Reapers Are the Angels), tells the story of Lumen Fowler, a quintessential good girl who grew up in a small American town with a strange secret: the town's teenagers don't just run wild in a metaphorical sense, they literally run wild with each full moon. Looking back at her adolescence from middle age, Lumen examines the year when the young people in her age group went "breach," spending three night a month bustling naked through the streets, engaging in primal acts of sex and violence, while adults and younger children hid in their houses. VERDICT In Lumen, Gaylord creates an unforgettable and, well, luminous narrative voice, and his language captures the lush, dangerous possibilities of teenage nights to perfection. Working both as a contemporary coming-of-age gothic novel and as a metaphorical exploration of the importance and cost of exploring one's instinctual side, this book deserves a breakout success like that of Jeffrey Eugenides's first novel, The Virgin Suicides.—Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Library Journal

2015-02-03
In this coming-of-age tale with a gory twist, Gaylord recounts the troubled adolescence of a good girl in a not-so-good town. It's not unusual for small towns off the beaten path to develop quirky rituals. Lumen Ann Fowler's hometown goes beyond that. When puberty hits, teenagers experience what's known as "breaching," a year-long period of cyclical sex and violence, akin to an orgiastic Rumspringa, which takes place at every full moon on the streets of the town and in the nearby woods. Lumen—the kind of girl with few friends, excellent grades and a great relationship with her widowed dad—is convinced she'll never breach (her mother never did), let alone get her first period. Gaylord cleverly weaves in Lumen's present-day narration, in which she's a happily married mother known as Ann whose husband and young son know nothing about her past, with the events leading up to and including her inevitable inclusion in the bizarre breaching rituals. The usual drama between teenage girls and the boys they covet is heightened not only at school, where the students whisper about their exploits under the previous night's moon, but also during the hypersexualized breaching scenes themselves. At first the tentative Lumen feels outmatched, but as she comes into her own—while unearthing secrets from her mother's past—she discovers that she's a force to be reckoned with. Though the buildup, like Lumen's agonizing wait to breach, is slow, once Gaylord finds his momentum, there's no stopping this bizarrely fascinating journey of dark self-discovery.

Kirkus Reviews