Enter the Aardvark
‘Deliciously astute, fresh and terminally funny’ GUARDIAN
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'It's a long time since I have enjoyed a novel so much. Fresh, witty and smart it also has a heart.' KATE ATKINSON
'Sizzles with uproarious fun, from its snout to the sting in its tale.' INDEPENDENT
'The perfect tonic for testing times.' GUARDIAN
We all know politics is absurd. But could a Republican be brought down by a stuffed aardvark?
Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is determined that nothing will stop him in his campaign for re-election. Not the fact that he is a bachelor, not the fact that his main adversary Nancy Beavers - married, with children - is rising in the polls. Nothing. That is, until one hot day in August, he receives a large parcel via FedEx. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark.
This aardvark has a surprising history - from the Victorian naturalist who discovered it to the taxidermist who deemed it his finest creation. But for Wilson, the entrance of the aardvark sets off a chain of events that threaten to ruin his entire career.
Constantly surprising, brilliantly comic and piquantly provocative, Enter the Aardvark is a tale for our times, a biting satire with a tender underbelly.
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'Sometimes, a paragraph near the start of a novel is so perfect and funny that you read it over and over, laugh every time, and know you're in for a treat...I'm loving this. Completely insane but utterly hilarious'. JOHN BOYNE
'Spry, slim, clever...the inventiveness is impressive and the story has heart' THE SUNDAY TIMES
'What begins as a topical takedown of the American political system deepens into a hugely enjoyable romp through history.' OBSERVER
'Fresh, astute and mouthwateringly sharp, this is a rare thing; a political satire that tugs on the heartstrings in unconventional ways.' IRISH TIMES
'Sharp, inventive and very funny, it's an entertainingly bizarre political satire.' TATLER
'Part 21st-century political satire, part unexpectedly affecting 19th-century love story...It's every bit as strange as it sounds, and yet somehow it works' DAILY MAIL
'Old, dead creature brings down flash, vain senator... Out in front as the most fizzing and amusing novel of the year.' STRONG WORDS magazine
'A blisteringly innovative and outrageous novel.' NY OBSERVER
'Weird, wonderful, and very much of the moment, Enter the Aardvark is a landmark political novel of the Trump era...With heart and humor, Anthony expertly skewers our current political climate.' ESQUIRE
'Inventive and darkly funny...as Anthony connects characters from today with those from 19th-century England, she offers an original and unsettling lens through which to view male power as it has evolved over time.' TIME
'Enter Jessica Anthony. With her highly inventive, ever attentive, and morally serious (as all great comedy must be) Enter the Aardvark, she estranges all over again our deplorable political moment, and thereby helps make it bearable.' JOSHUA FERRIS
'Mischievously zoological and darkly satirical - a brilliant novel' JOHN IRONMONGER, author of NOT FORGETTING THE WHALE
'A feverish, rollicking beast of a book. Totally assured, completely unpredictable, Jessica Anthony has created a true original.' SIMON WROE, author of CHOP CHOP and HERE COMES TROUBLE
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anthony (The Convalescent) stitches together stories from repressive Victorian England and venal contemporary American politics in this marvelous, tragic farce populated by characters uncomfortable in their own skin. In Namibia, 1875, naturalist Sir Richard Ostet sends an aardvark specimen back to England to be stuffed by his friend and love interest, taxidermist Titus Downing, whose unparalleled creations are famed for how the artist captures each animal's jiva, or the "immortal life-essence of each living being." After Downing's uncanny aardvark shows up on the doorstep of U.S. Congressman Alexander Paine Wilson in present-day D.C., the press digs into its past owners, including Hermann Goring's father, and its presumed sender, Wilson's secret male lover, triggering a career-threatening scandal for Wilson, an ambitious, Ronald Reagan obsessed Republican who proudly wields a "0" rating from the ACLU. Anthony alternates between the congressman's travails and Downing's taxidermic preparations, which reveal the hidden beauty within the creature's "appalling morphology." While the overly broad satirical portrait of Wilson detracts from his plotline's emotional resonance, the novel's smooth comic machinery builds toward a satisfying climax that reveals how the aardvark's history bears on the congressman's present. This idiosyncratic satire is full of wonders and warnings.)