We, The Animals

We, The Animals is a tribalistic attack on the senses. It has pathos and desperation and anger and frustration. It bites at you, tears at your skin and beats you senseless. It is a coming-of-age story, it is a memoir and it is utterly heartbreaking.

In short vignettes, loosely a collection of recollections and short stories, Torres takes us through his childhood. From the wild and animalistic pack mentality of him and his brothers to the brutal push and pull relationship between his part-charming, part-horrific father and his innocent and naïve mother. Slowly we see the nameless narrator, for all intents and purposes Torres himself, slowly pull away till the end when he becomes himself in a long dark night of the soul.

The book is short and full of broken fractured beauty. It has heart and soul and a black eye. It is wonderfully written, compact in its delivery but all-encompassing in its emotional range. A brutal tale told by a broken but not persevering narrator.