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About
Amie Souza Reilly bought an old house in the suburbs. She had just gotten remarried and was looking forward to a new start with her new husband and her six-year-old son. But immediately after moving in, the next-door neighbors began a crusade to push them out. The two brothers followed her, peered in her windows, stood in her yard, trapped her inside her car. As they broke boundary after suburban boundary, she found herself implicated in their violence.
Human/Animal merges personal narrative and cultural criticism to unleash the complicated relationship between instinct and action, violence and regret. This bestiary-in-essays wrestles American colonialism, horror films, feminism, and gender studies to confront the intrusive neighbors the author could not. Ultimately, this book asks larger questions about proximity, care, and the line between human and animal.
Illustrated with the author's own sketches, Human/Animal: A Bestiary in Essays grapples not only with Reilly's place in her neighborhood, but with America's past and current political climate. Amie Souza Reilly is an American writer and artist from Milford, Connecticut. She holds an MA in Literature from Fordham University and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Fairfield University. Her writing has appeared in Catapult, Atticus Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. She teaches and is the Writer-in-Residence at Sacred Heart University.
• Topicality: American politics, covid, Trump's presidency, women's rights, Indigenous studies, vegetarianism, environmental concerns, climate change
• speaks in favor of reproductive rights,
• concerns about climate change, racism, white supremacy, colonialism
• For readers of experimental essay forms, including memoir, research essays, lyric essays, and cultural critiques, especially those exploring violence, labor, and/or motherhood.
• relevant for students and scholars in disciplines including life writing, cultural studies, gender studies, and animal studies. A Bestiary of American Suburbia Reilly comments on the nature of proximity and familiarity, asking questions about surveillance, dominance, space, and boundaries. She cleverly weaves parallels between the animal world and the ways human society has both integrated and weaponized animal behaviors as tools to establish power over women and minorities. Readers of experimental essays, memoir, personal essays, and hybrid forms of nonfiction will delight in the formal distinctiveness of Human/Animal.
Human/Animal merges personal narrative and cultural criticism to unleash the complicated relationship between instinct and action, violence and regret. This bestiary-in-essays wrestles American colonialism, horror films, feminism, and gender studies to confront the intrusive neighbors the author could not. Ultimately, this book asks larger questions about proximity, care, and the line between human and animal.
Illustrated with the author's own sketches, Human/Animal: A Bestiary in Essays grapples not only with Reilly's place in her neighborhood, but with America's past and current political climate. Amie Souza Reilly is an American writer and artist from Milford, Connecticut. She holds an MA in Literature from Fordham University and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Fairfield University. Her writing has appeared in Catapult, Atticus Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. She teaches and is the Writer-in-Residence at Sacred Heart University.
• Topicality: American politics, covid, Trump's presidency, women's rights, Indigenous studies, vegetarianism, environmental concerns, climate change
• speaks in favor of reproductive rights,
• concerns about climate change, racism, white supremacy, colonialism
• For readers of experimental essay forms, including memoir, research essays, lyric essays, and cultural critiques, especially those exploring violence, labor, and/or motherhood.
• relevant for students and scholars in disciplines including life writing, cultural studies, gender studies, and animal studies. A Bestiary of American Suburbia Reilly comments on the nature of proximity and familiarity, asking questions about surveillance, dominance, space, and boundaries. She cleverly weaves parallels between the animal world and the ways human society has both integrated and weaponized animal behaviors as tools to establish power over women and minorities. Readers of experimental essays, memoir, personal essays, and hybrid forms of nonfiction will delight in the formal distinctiveness of Human/Animal.
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Extended Details
- SeriesLife Writing