• Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
  • Search Site

Polari Magazine

  • Home
  • Up Front
    • Editorial
    • Clementine: The Living Fashion Doll
    • Polari Safari
    • WTF? Friday
    • Bulletin Board
    • Polari Facts
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Features
    • Gallery
    • Opinion
    • Heroes & Villains
  • Community
    • Oral Histories
    • Coming Out Stories
    • Relationships
    • IDAHO
    • LGBT History Month
    • Blogs
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Film and Television
    • Music
    • Stage
    • Visual Arts
    • Classics: Books
    • Classics: Film and Television
    • Classics: Music
  • About
    • About Polari Magazine
    • Contributors
    • Contact

You are here: Polari Magazine / Books / We The Animals • Justin Torres

We The Animals • Justin Torres

05 Mar 2012 / Comments Off / in Books/by Christopher Bryant

We The Animals ★★★★★
Justin Torres
144 pages • Granta • March 1, 2012 [HB]
…………………………………………………………………………………………

Justin Torres’ first book, We The Animals, is extraordinary. It’s a story about what it means to come-of-age, what it means to start out life as part of a unit, a pack, and then to become an individual. The narrator guides the reader through the disorder of growing up with two older brothers, and parents who are as chaotic as their lives. “We wanted more,” he begins, and his voice frames the chaos with a craftsmanship that is remarkable. “We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.” The book is a series of snapshots of that life, and with each one the narrator becomes more aware of himself, and what his story means.

At 125 pages, We The Animals is a novel, and it also poetry. The events in the narrative storyline are interpreted, translated into the language of the emotions, into poetry. The unnamed narrator turns seven in the fourth chapter, and the mother explains, “When you boys turned seven, you left me. Shut yourselves off from me. That’s what big boys do, what seven year-olds do.” The boy then fights that ide, and he guides the reader through the twists and turns of that fight. It is a remarkable piece of writing. And at the end of the struggle, “she cussed me and Jesus, and the tears dropped, and I was seven.”

And so it goes, chaotic and wild through the life of the three boys, through the life of his white mother and his Puerto Rican father, all the characters chasing around like animals, reacting to situations, not thinking about them. Until, that is, the narrator hits puberty, and discovers his sexuality, and what that means to this primal way of life.

In the reviews, none of the heavyweights – New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Time Out (New York) – mention the narrator’s sexuality. This is probably a good thing for the book sales. And in some ways the discovery of the narrator’s sexuality is so bound up with the ending that it reads like a spoiler. It is, nevertheless, his homosexuality that separates the narrator from his brothers and his parents. First it marks him out as an individual, where he is thinking of his own needs and not those of the pack, and second it makes him different from them, so that they no longer identify with him.

We The Animals is, in the Granta edition, as beautiful a book physically as it is emotionally. There really is a great pleasure in holding it. It feels as individual as the story it tells. This is something that Granta is consistently good at. The Magazine of New Writing: 117, for example, is as wonderful a book to hold as it is to read. I started to read We The Animals on the train, and there was a woman sat opposite me with a pinched face, reading a Kindle. Without pages, without individuality, part of the book is lost. The message of We The Animals is housed in the perfect frame, and I am grateful that Granta continue to consider this an important part of the process. A book as wonderful as Justin Torres’ debut deserves no less.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Tags: fiction review, granta, granta magazine of new writing, justin torres, we the animals

Related Posts

Did you like this entry?
Here are a few more posts that might be interesting for you.
Related Posts
Interview: Justin Torres
Any Human Face • Charles Lambert
Polari HQ • What are we reading?
Pilcrow • Adam Mars-Jones
Confessions of a Sex Addict: Part 1 • Michael Wy...
A Stone’s Throw • Fiona Shaw
Justin Torres at GtW

Search Polari

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

About Polari Magazine

Polari Magazine is an LGBT arts and culture magazine that explores the subculture by looking at what is important to the people who are in it. It’s about the lives we lead, not the lifestyles we’re supposed to lead.

Its content is informed & insightful, and features a diverse range of writers from every section of the community. Its intent is to help LGBT readers learn about their own heritage and to sustain a link between the present and the past.

Polari is designed to nurture the idea of community, whether that be social and political, or artistic and creative. It is your magazine, whether you want to read it, or whether you want to get involved in it, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer.

Polari Magazine is all these: it's a gay online magazine; it's a gay and lesbian online magazine; it's an LGBT arts and culture magazine. Ultimately, it is a queer magazine.

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

Twitter

Tweets by @PolariMagazine

Archive

  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
© Copyright - Polari Magazine - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at
  • scroll to top
  • Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Website Privacy & Cookies