The Last Animal
A Novel
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Whip-smart and compulsively readable. . . both a wildly entertaining adventure story and a meditation on what it means to love your children—fiercely and imperfectly.”—Oprah Daily
“Springs alive to explore questions that stump scientists and families, problems of the head and the heart.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“A full-hearted portrait of sisterhood, family and the ways we process grief. Charming, wry, and original.” —People
TWO SISTERS, ONE MOM, AND ONE WOOLLY SECRET.
Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother’s scientific expedition. But there’s a lot about their lives lately that hasn’t been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either.
Now in Siberia with a bunch of serious biologists, Eve and Vera are just bored enough to cause trouble. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting. The discovery sets off a surprising chain of events, leading mother and daughters to go rogue, pinging from the slopes of Siberia to the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, and resulting in the birth of a creature that could change the world—or at least this family.
The Last Animal takes readers on a wild, entertaining, and refreshingly different kind of journey, one that explores the possibilities and perils of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it’s like to be a woman in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Ice Age meets the Anthropocene in this gem from Ausubel (Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty), centered on a scientist's improbable attempt to revive an extinct species. A research trip brings Jane, a recently widowed graduate student, to the permafrost of Siberia, along with her two daughters, Eve, 15, and Vera, 12. Since their father died, Jane has thrown herself into work, and the girls would rather be anywhere than Siberia. Then the miraculous discovery of a baby mammoth preserved in ice brings them together. Back home in San Francisco, Jane shares her discovery with Helen, a glamorous amateur zookeeper who lives with zebras and giraffes on her husband's estate on Lake Como. Soon, Jane and Helen hatch a plan to impregnate Helen's pet elephant with a genetically modified embryo based on the baby mammoth's DNA. Supporting players include a group of beardy professor-scientists in zip-off cargo pants who believe resurrecting the planet's long-lost megafauna will heal the misdeeds of generations, and an Icelandic boy toy who catalyzes a perfectly reckless moment of teenage rebellion for Eve. Ausubel is at her best when exploring the ties that bind, especially in a family flung into unprecedented circumstances. In charting the parallel worlds of grief, scientific devotion, and adolescence, Ausubel comes up with a seamless global caper that brims with compassion and makes the reader glad to be alive.
