The Memory of Animals
Claire Fuller
Reviewed by Allison Flory
Out this past June from Tin House, Claire Fuller’s fifth full-length novel The Memory of Animals explores a dystopian landscape as a virus ravages humanity. Taking place within a clinical trial facility searching for solutions, the story that follows is as fluid as the octopuses Neffy, our narrator, once studied with intense closeness, and as ever-evolving as our own pandemic panic.
Fuller makes incredible use of space and time as she crafts an imaginative blend of science and spirit. I allowed myself to be broken open by Neffy’s suppressed histories as they drift to the surface of the laboratory, lucid and solid thanks to a surprising new technology presented to her. Braided throughout the novel and the characters are questions that reach deep into the root of humanity: What does it mean to be caged? How much of ourselves do we give to those around us? Can you ever truly forgive yourself for the things your hands have done?
The Memory of Animals sets itself brilliantly apart from other stories of calamity. Fear comes not just from the devastation of disease, the unraveling violence of collapse, and the immediate scarcity of necessities; the characters in this story must confront their own pasts in order to find a way through the uncertainty of their futures. Neffy is joined in the facility by Leon, a trial participant, who gives her the unique opportunity to revisit her memories in striking materiality. As a reader, I was struck by the honesty with which we are able to view Neffy once there is nowhere left for her to hide: her beautifully human flaws, her obsessions, the finite moments that define her infinitely.
As thrilling as the apocalypse but as deeply poignant as a poet’s diary, the heart of The Memory of Animals lies in the mystery that unravels like a tightly-wound thread: letters of confession and earnestness to a cryptic “H,” scars and their permanence, questions that beg for answers, and grief that resists being swallowed. Claire Fuller has siphoned all of the beauty of being human into this work, and I am drinking it all in.