Synopsis:
The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever.
But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation. Predictably, Joshua and Carlyle quickly warm to each other while Nick and Emilia are left to their own devices. Nick puts the time to good use and his flirtation with Emilia quickly blooms into romance. Though not long after the affair turns intimate, Nick begins to suspect that Emilia’s interest in him may have sinister, and possibly even ancient, motivations.
Punctuated by scenes from Nick’s adolescent years, when memories of a queer awakening and a shadowy presence stalking the farm altered the trajectory of his life forever, Sacrificial Animals explores the violent legacy of inherited trauma and the total collapse of a family in its wake.
Review:
‘Sacrificial Animals’ is a novel that easily stands out as one of the most impressive debuts of the year. Kailee Pedersen’s writing dazzles even in the bleakness that she portrays, producing a story laced with dread, decay, and shrouded in subtlety. Pedersen masterfully interweaves timelines from the past and present to curate an honest picture of a fractured family in all its dreadful glory – the Morrow family.
Nick Morrow returns to Stag’s Crossing, 1000 acres of farmland that he grew up on with his abusive father Carlyle and older brother Joshua, to reunite with his father who is dying from cancer. ‘Sacrificial Animals’ at its core is the case study of a broken family – the corroding and permanent damage a patriarch can have on his bloodline. ‘Toxic masculinity’ almost feels like too weak of a term to describe Carlyle and his terrible lasting impact on the psyches of both Nick and Joshua, but it is the term that errs closest to the truth. Scenes of awkward reconciliation between the three in the present are punctured by memories of violence and abuse from the past, creating a story where trauma lives and breathes alongside our characters.
Pedersen cleverly encapsulates this culture of violence, of manufactured masculinity, through the confines of their homestead, Stag’s Crossing. A lurking gothic decay sweeps through the farmland and woods of Stag’s Crossing from the very beginning, the ever-looming threat of an empire in danger of collapse. Stag’s Crossing is the Morrow family. Built from Carlyle’s own two hands, the homestead holds in all the malice and venom that Carlyle exudes, keeping out everyone and everything that differs from his view of the world. The fear is always of legacy, of the future. With Carlyle’s life nearing its end, Nick or Joshua must take the reins, their trauma an heirloom and constant reminder of what is expected of them.
I should say quickly that Pedersen deserves great credit here. We often scrutinise and praise male authors for accurately (or otherwise) writing women, but there is much less commentary about women writing male characters. I thought Pedersen did a great job of writing a novel about three very complicated male figures. Could I relate to the characters enough to confidently say they are accurate portrayals? Thankfully not, however all three men absolutely felt authentic and representative of dynamics that undoubtedly exist, and that is all you can ask for.
Of course as much as ‘Sacrifical Animals’ is about the Morrow family, about men, it is equally about Emilia. Joshua’s wife and a woman of Asian heritage, Emilia represents everything that Carlyle fears will be the downfall of his house – in short, anyone not straight, white and male. Emilia is sly, she is secretive and she is menacing; Emilia is everything that keeps the story ticking on towards its inevitable conclusion. As much as the story is about male violence and inherited trauma, it is equally about everyone else – the people who suffer at the hands of these men, and their desire for revenge, for vindication.
‘Sacrificial Animals’ is a delicious slow burn of a novel that first seeps under your skin, and then into your heart. Kailee Pedersen’s writing is equally as gorgeous as the content of the story is dread inducing, and I cannot recommend this book enough.
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