'New Animal' by Ella Baxter
'New Animal' by Ella Baxter
'The deceased are beyond beautiful, but only because they are emptied of worry.'—Review #217
I had a massive book hangover after I finished ‘Middlemarch,’ so I wanted my next read to be something completely different. I flipped through the books on my bedside pile for one to catch my eye. When I picked up Ella Baxter’s ‘New Animal,’ I turned to the back for a synopsis. Instead I saw her author bio, which says Baxter is a writer and sculptor from Melbourne, Australia, who also runs a small business making ‘bespoke death shrouds.’ I was like:
A synopsis didn’t matter anymore. I knew I found what I was looking for.
Here’s the cover:
Amelia Aurelia is a makeup artist at her family’s funeral home in Australia. She takes pride in her work primping the recently deceased for their final moments among friends and family. She carefully chooses the cosmetics, selects the right accessories and positions the body just so, all to provide mourners with a bit of comfort seeing their loved one looking good in their final rest. But outside of work, Amelia is messy. She doesn’t appear to have much going on beyond her immediate circle, which includes her mother, stepfather, brother, her brother’s throuple partners and a coworker. She’s in denial about an acquaintance’s suicide (she did his makeup, too), saying she’s over it when she’s not over it, and often goes to take in the view from the cliff where he jumped. Her proximity to death has left her spiritually empty, and she tries to fill that dead space through sex with random men found on dating apps. Amelia is not in a good place, and when her mother dies in a freak accident, she completely comes apart, like:
Unable to face the funeral, let alone doing her mother’s makeup for it, Amelia leaves her family and heads to Tasmania where her biological father lives. Her aim is to process her grief in an idyllic setting, but she’s quickly back on the apps. She connects with a guy who takes her to a kink club. He tells her he’s a ‘sadist,’ and she realizes she might have made a terrible mistake getting into this stranger’s car in the middle of the night without telling anyone where she was going. But as she’s eyeing the road for potential places to jump out of the car, they arrive at the venue. They wander around the club, take in the various acts on view, and then Amelia decides to participate. It’s a harrowing and unsettling experience, but afterward she decides to learn more about this new-to-her world of pleasure through pain, thinking it’s a path to spiritual healing. But when Amelia tries to join a kink group, things get very bizarre and disturbing. I was like:
Obviously, ‘New Animal’ isn’t for every reader. It can be morbid, and there are frank depictions of sex (as you’ll see below) and flashes of violence. There were moments when I struggled with it. Amelia’s journey into kink felt a bit forced and oddly cleared of any friends who might warn her off or other interests that might divert her. And while the story seeks to highlight the intricacies of kink faithfully, which is fine, it gets bogged down in it. At times it felt like I was reading a brochure. Even so, I liked the book’s unusual premise, and how it offered a glimpse into two worlds unfamiliar to me: funeral homes and kink. (The closest I’ve come to the latter was when I accidentally wandered into bondage night in the basement at Pyramid Club.) I also liked that Baxter’s novel reaffirmed my desire to be cremated: The thought of a stranger touching, applying makeup to and/or positioning my dead body had me like:
I’m glad I read ‘New Animal.’ It’s entertaining, educational and weird, and it helped me move on from ‘Middlemarch.’ If you’re up for it, it’s worth a look.
How it begins:
There is a man with kind eyes and crooked teeth in my bed. He’s facing me and smiling, preparing to talk. I cough once, loudly, because talking is unnecessary at this point.
We both watched patiently as he prodded my vagina with his hangnailed finger, and we took turns sighing mid-thrust.
Afterward, Adam squashes my memory foam pillow until it’s wedged beneath his armpit for support. He squints at my framed certificate hanging above the bookshelf. My stepdad Vincent paid for the framing in honor of all the technical skills I had to learn, because he likes to celebrate stamina and effort. My mother even made a cake.
‘Certificate IV in Embalming, awarded to Amelia Aurelia,’ Adam reads aloud.
‘I tend to focus more on the cosmetic aspect,’ I explain.
‘Right,’ he says, turning toward me. ‘Funeral makeup.’ He purses his lips while continuing to crush my only good pillow.
Who they thanked:
In addition to thanking family, friends, publishers and other supporters of her work, Ella Baxter gives a shout out to people she connected with ‘from the funeral industry and the kink community.’ In one interesting line, she says that someone taught her ‘that fear is always temporary, however large, however furious.’ I wonder what inspired that insight.
My rating:
‘New Animal’ by Ella Baxter was published by Allen & Unwin in Australia in 2021 and by Two Dollar Radio in 2022. 184 pages. $13.50 at Two Dollar Radio.
What’s next:
Before you go:
ICYMI: Review #216
Read this: Hat tip to Donna for flagging ‘The Gen X Guide to Brooklyn Nightlife’ in Brooklyn magazine. There are so many great bars in here, including every one we hang out at in and around our neighborhood. I’m glad to know we live in a demographically appropriate zone!
Do this: The Brooklyn Book Festival starts this week. I’ll be wandering around the booths outside Borough Hall next Sunday. If you’re there, find me and say hi!
If you enjoyed this review:
Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!
Until next time,
MPV
Definitely not for me. Well, the funeral home part is, but not the rest. A close friend owned a funeral home and she did all the makeup and after being a nurse for 40 years, none of that bothers me. Just too old for the rest 😂😂
Very much enjoyed the autumnal gifs 🍂