What do You think about The Animal-Lover's Book Of Beastly Murder (2002)?
This was well written but not at all what I expected in a book... I expected cutesy stories of clever murdering cats and maybe an older lady or two detective piecing things together. Yeah, this was not that kind of book. It was a brutal one. ("beastly murder" really should have clued me in, so I acknowledge it's all my faulty judgement...) I was surprised at how depressed I felt after each story. When I finished the book, I felt an odd heavy weight from the injustices heaped on all of the animal murderers, which drive them to these murders. Of course, I felt no sympathy for the human victims, each and every one deserved it but there was no resolute feeling of justice being served. Just a general sadness that even though these stories are fiction, I see how these daily injustices happen to animals everywhere. I'm not exactly a bleeding heart when it comes to such matters, but maybe it's from my experiences volunteering at an animal hospital that investigated animal cruelty issues, frequently. I do know people like that are out there and even though they may deserve brutal justice, it's only in fiction that they meet their untimely end... Well, that was me being way too maudlin!! Anyway. It was quite well written and from the animal perspective, it just perhaps isn't the kind of book I would add to my pleasure reading list, again.
—Marissa
A book of short tales of animals' murderous revenge on human beings. Hamsters, chickens, ferrets, cats, cockroaches, goats, pigs... you name it... exact revenge on humans that have mistreated, neglected, abused or merely misunderstood them. Many of these are excellently crafted with insight into the animal perspective. Ming the cat is the quintessential cat. The story of the cockroach is spot-on cockroach perspective. These are gruesome little stories. I have to say, though, as much as I wanted to root for the mistreated and misunderstood animals, I did not find myself cheering on their murderous deeds in order to feel vindicated. I don't know that I'm entirely let down by not exalting in the vindication of the animals, though, as it really aligns with the animal perspective of just really getting out of a bad situation and not really going overboard sensationalizing the murders.
—Sarah
Patricia Highsmith brings together in one collection thirteen tales of revenge, animal style.This is a mixed bag of quality and entertainment that ranges from the brilliant to the mediocre, the witty to the dull and the obvious to the horrific. Stories about how humans mistreat animals and the understandable mixture of reactions from the animals; fear, instinct, self-defence, murder and straight forward standing up for their rights to be treated with dignity. We're not just talking about cats and dogs but camels and elephants too. Highsmith takes an animals perspective on everyday behaviour from the human beings who dominate them and largely achieves great things.The stories can lazily be divided in to two categories, those from the animal point of view and those from the human but both ways she paints the human in a negative light. The most enjoyable of the stories are those that fall in to the first category however; the performing elephant who is mistreated one time too many, the goat with too much energy for its owners, the cat who is in love with its owner, the dog whose owner dies for example and that's ignoring stand out high point of the tale of the rat in Venice and the confessions of a New York cockroach who's going up in the world.It's the other group that I had problems with, Highsmith doesn't reach the same heights when she describes events from the human observers point of view; in these the people are much more obviously horrible and the behaviour of the animals so much more obvious and bloody, essentially meaning if you've read one of them you've read all of them. Not an ideal characteristic for a short story collection and hence the award of only 3 stars.If you're already a fan then this is a must-read, if you're new to this wonderful writer of literary suspense thrillers (amongst other things) then perhaps start with one of her more popular novels before diving in to this one.
—Tfitoby
