Love and Human Nature in “A Real Animal”

We first meet Lucy, the bright (but sometimes misguided) narrator of Emeline Atwood’s debut novel A Real Animal, dangerously high up in the branches of an oak tree on her New England college campus. Naked, snarling, and fully convinced that she is a leopard, Lucy draws a crowd, evading all rescue attempts over the next few hours. It is only after she sees her mother rising up to the treetop on the lift of a cherry picker that Lucy finally comes to, “suddenly feeling extremely unbalanced and very high up.” Ignoring the advice of first responders and university personnel, Lucy and her mother end up in a silent car ride bound not for the hospital, but for Lucy’s childhood home, where the “leopard incident” is rarely, if ever, spoken of again.