Zoology
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
A funny, wise and heartwarming story of a young man’s first forays into love during a long, hot summer in New York City.
Henry likes to think of himself as a promising jazz musician. The truth, however, is slightly less glamorous. At 18, he's dropped out of university, lives at home with his bickering parents, and spends most of his time with the family dog. The outlook, it seems, is bleak. So when his brother offers to put him up for the summer in his New York City apartment, Henry leaps at the chance to start living the life of his dreams…
But jazz gigs are not immediately forthcoming so Henry lands a job at the Central Park Children's Zoo. Over weeks spent chopping vegetables and shovelling dung, his world gradually expands to include a motley crew of zoo keepers, doormen and animals of every description. Amongst these, the undisputed star is Newman, the zoo's stoic Nubian goat, in whom Henry confides his growing love for Margaret, the girl upstairs, like him in town for the summer. As the months unfolds in a haze of jazz bars, ill-advised romance and hard truths about family, Henry learns what what it is to love – and to lose – in this hilarious, inventive and touching debut novel.
Reviews
‘Ben Dolnick is a writer of incredible sensitivity. “Zoology” explores the tricky journey to adulthood with honesty, humour, and generosity.’ Jonathan Safran Foer
‘As a writer, Dolnick…demonstrates an engaging lightness of touch.’ The New Yorker
‘Ben Dolnick, has written a delightful post-ironic novel…The story is simple, sad, sweet and funny – and saved from sentimentality by a streak of cold-eyed honesty about the ubiquity of human failings.’ New York Observer
‘The transition from childhood to the adult world remains as rich a vein for writers as it was when Holden Caulfield first wandered around New York…Dolnick gives his narrator a struggling, wry voice that carries the tale.’ The New York Times
‘Disarming and funny.’ Guardian
‘Dolnick…is evidently writing about familiar territory. He handles his character's feelings with sensitivity…It's a sweet tale of middle class angst.’ Financial Times
‘A gripping debut novel.’ Harper's Bazaar
About the author
Ben Dolnick was born in 1982 and grew up outside of Washington, D.C. He now lives in New York. This is his first novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The animal residents of the Central Park Children's Zoo are not the only creatures gently scrutinized in Dolnick's charming debut, a light bildungsroman about shoveling goat poop and growing up. Henry Elinsky, helplessly ordinary, has flunked out after his first semester of college and is living at home in Chevy Chase, Md. Besieged by his father's unrelenting optimism, his mother's unhappiness and his uncle's hypersensitivity, Henry joins his older brother in New York City and takes a job as a keeper at the Children's Zoo. Henry's time in the city is a whirlwind of self-discovery: he cleans animal pens, receives the testy treatment from his brother's rich, bitchy girlfriend and realizes his would-be career as a saxophonist isn't all that promising. Henry also revels in his unrequited passion for young aspiring writer Margaret, even though he knows he and Margaret cannot be together. It takes a family crisis and a monumental error of judgment at the zoo to nudge Henry onward. Dolnick can capture in one surprisingly lucid phrase the essence of a situation, though his narrator's benign travails may not resonate with readers not of the 18 25 demographic. This is very much a young man's book; it will be interesting to see what Dolnick does next.