A remarkable and moving cross-genre work about animal rights by one of America’s foremost experimental writers Whether investigating refugee parrots,…
indentured elephants, the pathetic fallacy, or the revolving absurdity of the human role in the "invasive species crisis," Personhood reveals how the unmistakable problem between humans and our nonhuman relatives is too often the derangement of our narratives and the resulting lack of situational awareness. Building on her previous collection, Bird Lovers, Backyard, Thalia Field's essayistic investigations invite us on a humorous, heartbroken journey into how people attempt to control the fragile complexities of a shared planet. The lived experiences of animals, and other historical actors, provide unique literary-ecological responses to the exigencies of injustice and to our delusions of special status.
Escaping the narrow, wealthy life she led in Manhattan, Zoe Finney moves her family to Park Slope, Brooklyn, an area…
of beautiful old brownstones where working-class families have lived for generations.A poor girl who married into money, Zoe finds comfort in the close-knit neighborhood.She hopes the change will reinvigorate her profoundly depressed husband and provide a happy place for her small daughter, Rose, to grow.But her arrival there alters the lives around her, especially the handsome schoolteacher next door, Keevan O'Connor, who is deeply drawn to her. Despite Zoe's initial hesitation, they begin to fall in love. Rose is thrilled, recognizing in Keevan the warm, fun-loving father hers could never be. But when Zoe's husband wakes from his depression to see his wife slipping away, Zoe is torn between her love for two men.