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The Animal Girl
The five heartbreaking and radiant stories in John Fulton's The Animal Girl explore the awkwardness of situations in which grief and erotic love collide. Here are people in extremis, struggling mightily, and often failing, to keep it together. In the Pushcart Prize--winning "Hunters," Fulton contrasts the humorous clumsiness of dating with the grim realities of death in the tale of a middle-aged woman who keeps her cancer a secret when she starts a relationship with an avid hunter. In the novella-length title story, a lonely adolescent girl deals with the recent loss of her mother and the alien presence of her father's new girlfriend by taking out her aggression on her boss and on the animals she cares for in her summer job at a research laboratory. The final story in the collection, "The Sleeping Woman," delves into the inner life of Evelyn, a divorced professional woman who falls in love with Russell, a man whose wife is permanently brain damaged and has been unresponsive for years. The ghostly presence of Russell's wife haunts Evelyn as she discovers how her lover has been scarred by his misfortune and searches for ways they might build a long-term relationship in the wake of personal tragedy.
These powerful stories approach the often sentimentalized subject of romance with tenderness and insight into the heart-worn perspective of characters who have failed at love in the past. In lucid, revelatory prose, Fulton navigates the complexity of both mid-life courtship and adolescent rage with humor and intelligence.
These powerful stories approach the often sentimentalized subject of romance with tenderness and insight into the heart-worn perspective of characters who have failed at love in the past. In lucid, revelatory prose, Fulton navigates the complexity of both mid-life courtship and adolescent rage with humor and intelligence.
- GenresShort Stories
174 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2007
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
John Fulton
4 books2 followersJohn Fulton grew up in Utah and Montana, attended college in Washington State, and lived in Europe for five years, during which time he worked as a chauffeur and a translator. He earned his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, where he taught creative writing and literature for many years.
He is the author of three books of fiction, Retribution , which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and the Salt Lake City Tribune Best Adult Novel of the West for 2002, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book and shortlisted for numerous prizes, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Spokane Prize, and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize, among others.
His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He has also received grants and fellowships from the New York Writers Institute, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
His new collection of short stories, The Flounder, is forthcoming from Blackwater Press in the spring of 2023.
He is the author of three books of fiction, Retribution , which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and the Salt Lake City Tribune Best Adult Novel of the West for 2002, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book and shortlisted for numerous prizes, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Spokane Prize, and the Katherine Ann Porter Prize, among others.
His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He has also received grants and fellowships from the New York Writers Institute, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor in the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
His new collection of short stories, The Flounder, is forthcoming from Blackwater Press in the spring of 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 20, 2025
honestly super solid collection of short stories! my ranking from fave to least fave is probably hunters/sleeping woman -> animal girl -> real grief -> a small matter. hunters and the sleeping woman were just incredible honestly, really intimate and sad in the best ways. and of course i cried at hunters. duh. i enjoyed animal girl but still dont know how to feel about the ending, and real grief was so weird and strange and uncomfortable that i ended up really enjoying it. so maybe animal girl and real grief can be tied for 2nd. and small matter was fine but the others were such heavy hitters that it did pale a little in comparison. but yeah i really enjoyed these and i think i need to read more short story collections in general bc this one was awesome :3
November 14, 2007
I enjoyed this book so much that I've already read it twice. Granted, I'm a bit inclined to enjoy a book where I can easily picture the characters and their location (I've lived in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan for 12 years now). However, Fulton does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the worlds of his characters.
It's easy to feel the grief, questions, concerns that they all feel. It's easy to want to be mad at them for decisions they're making and actions they take. At the same time, though, there's a connection that arises that draws you in and just won't let go. You realize that these are people we all know, people we've met, and that the lives on the paper are ones that could easily exist in the "real" world.
Fulton does an excellent job of portraying the emotions and feelings of his female characters. He truly understands what draws them to their conclusions and does so in such a way that the reader is left feeling a bit nostalgic that they've finished reading that portion of the book.
One of my favorite parts was trying to figure out exactly where the characters were. For me, this helped a lot in terms of visualizing the scenery. However, I think I would have enjoyed it just as much without knowing this area as well as I do...substituting in the descriptions he provides.
I have already recommended this book to my friends and highly recommend it to all of you! It's offered a peak into the lives of others who could easily be people I meet every day, and did so in a caring and enlightening way.
Thank you, John!
It's easy to feel the grief, questions, concerns that they all feel. It's easy to want to be mad at them for decisions they're making and actions they take. At the same time, though, there's a connection that arises that draws you in and just won't let go. You realize that these are people we all know, people we've met, and that the lives on the paper are ones that could easily exist in the "real" world.
Fulton does an excellent job of portraying the emotions and feelings of his female characters. He truly understands what draws them to their conclusions and does so in such a way that the reader is left feeling a bit nostalgic that they've finished reading that portion of the book.
One of my favorite parts was trying to figure out exactly where the characters were. For me, this helped a lot in terms of visualizing the scenery. However, I think I would have enjoyed it just as much without knowing this area as well as I do...substituting in the descriptions he provides.
I have already recommended this book to my friends and highly recommend it to all of you! It's offered a peak into the lives of others who could easily be people I meet every day, and did so in a caring and enlightening way.
Thank you, John!
May 12, 2014
This guy was the only person to offer me actually useful advice about graduate school. So even though I didn't follow his advice, exactly ("Don't go into debt for an MFA," the teaching fellowship wasn't quite enough to live on...given my, uh, appetites), I feel a little indebted to him.
So: John, pretty much no-one earns more than four stars from me.
Now, my two cents:
So much grief in this book, I can't help making a comparison to Haslett's You Are Not A Stranger Here, and in particular, The Beginnings of Grief. I'm actually impressed with Fulton's knack for conveying pain, shock, etc.
On the other hand, there are times I'm very much aware of the writer pulling strings behind the not-so-invisible curtain. For example, in Real Grief, it's hard to credit a thirteen year old boy with a thought like, "She had a passion for stray things." No, that sounds like a clever guy with a graduate degree, using his character as a puppet. Get your hand out of your players' bums--haha?
Overall though, I liked this book a lot (and I'm not blowing smoke up anyone's hoo-hah, just ask the other UMass faculty member, about whose book I also wrote here, who, uh, stopped talking to me). I don't know about "...like an old master..." (Boston Sunday Globe blurb), but still young enough to remain relevant for a long time, and also very promising? Definitely.
So: John, pretty much no-one earns more than four stars from me.
Now, my two cents:
So much grief in this book, I can't help making a comparison to Haslett's You Are Not A Stranger Here, and in particular, The Beginnings of Grief. I'm actually impressed with Fulton's knack for conveying pain, shock, etc.
On the other hand, there are times I'm very much aware of the writer pulling strings behind the not-so-invisible curtain. For example, in Real Grief, it's hard to credit a thirteen year old boy with a thought like, "She had a passion for stray things." No, that sounds like a clever guy with a graduate degree, using his character as a puppet. Get your hand out of your players' bums--haha?
Overall though, I liked this book a lot (and I'm not blowing smoke up anyone's hoo-hah, just ask the other UMass faculty member, about whose book I also wrote here, who, uh, stopped talking to me). I don't know about "...like an old master..." (Boston Sunday Globe blurb), but still young enough to remain relevant for a long time, and also very promising? Definitely.
February 15, 2024
John Fulton’s prose is beautifully straight-forward, flows like a boxer in the ring, and then wallops you in the jaw when you least expect it. When reading this collection (two novellas and three short stories) it became clear to me that Fulton, back then, was a budding master of emotion and emotional conflict. He likes to drop his characters into– and what appears to be–no win situations, letting them get out on their own terms. He also has a good command of the affairs of the heart and shows that love is found, not on a grand scale, but in the day-to-day interactions of reality and in the cracks of human frailty.
My favorites from this collection were the short stories: Real Grief, Hunters and A Small Matter. While I appreciated the writing style of The Animal Girl, I was a little unsettled by the dogs. But that’s just me, because I was a dog owner. The other novella, The Sleeping Woman, started off a bit slow but picked up speed at the end. All stories were worth a read and I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.
If you enjoy short stories that resonate with you afterward like ripples in a pond formed by someone chucking a stone into it, you’ll enjoy this collection. This is literary short story writing with purpose, quirkiness and lots of appeal.
My favorites from this collection were the short stories: Real Grief, Hunters and A Small Matter. While I appreciated the writing style of The Animal Girl, I was a little unsettled by the dogs. But that’s just me, because I was a dog owner. The other novella, The Sleeping Woman, started off a bit slow but picked up speed at the end. All stories were worth a read and I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.
If you enjoy short stories that resonate with you afterward like ripples in a pond formed by someone chucking a stone into it, you’ll enjoy this collection. This is literary short story writing with purpose, quirkiness and lots of appeal.
December 29, 2009
If you care about fiction, run away from this book. I don't think I've ever read stories so afraid of themselves, so many safe ideas written up in safe, secondhand language. It's the kind of enervating book that made me think, halfway through, that my memory of fiction must be false, that maybe it was all this terrible. (In despair, I grabbed Denis Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' off the shelf and read the first page to instant relief. Any one page of Johnson is worth more than this whole book.)
I finished 'The Animal Girl' only because its failures are so instructive. Here are a few of the big ones: 1) There's not a sharply drawn character in the whole book, which is remarkable given that the stories are "character driven." Every character is a summary of a person, not a person. Fulton's men are especially empty, all of them generalized non-entities. His characters are so bland and inexact it makes you wonder whether he really pays attention to people. 2) The language is unambitious, inexact, prosaic, and unconsciously bad. There's a great deal of "fiction" here, and his fictional tics are those of an undergraduate. 3) There is no sexual or romantic energy between his couples despite all the time he spends cutely tip-toeing into their interest in each other. The least immediate parts of the book are the sex scenes. 4) Every thought, feeling, and act is always absolutely spelled out in the blandest possible way. There is nothing for the reader to discover in these stories because Fulton does not trust his reader. 5) The stories don't end in any fictionally coherent way; they peter into the most obligatory kind of summary or (most embarrassingly, in the case of the title story) resort to a dream.
When people complain about forgettable careerist workshop fiction, this is the book they're talking about.
I finished 'The Animal Girl' only because its failures are so instructive. Here are a few of the big ones: 1) There's not a sharply drawn character in the whole book, which is remarkable given that the stories are "character driven." Every character is a summary of a person, not a person. Fulton's men are especially empty, all of them generalized non-entities. His characters are so bland and inexact it makes you wonder whether he really pays attention to people. 2) The language is unambitious, inexact, prosaic, and unconsciously bad. There's a great deal of "fiction" here, and his fictional tics are those of an undergraduate. 3) There is no sexual or romantic energy between his couples despite all the time he spends cutely tip-toeing into their interest in each other. The least immediate parts of the book are the sex scenes. 4) Every thought, feeling, and act is always absolutely spelled out in the blandest possible way. There is nothing for the reader to discover in these stories because Fulton does not trust his reader. 5) The stories don't end in any fictionally coherent way; they peter into the most obligatory kind of summary or (most embarrassingly, in the case of the title story) resort to a dream.
When people complain about forgettable careerist workshop fiction, this is the book they're talking about.
February 18, 2009
I'm really not sure what to say about this book. The writing itself had a rhythm to it that carried me along. But the stories quite thoroughly disturbed me. And it takes a LOT to genuinely disturb me in writing. I think I just need to wait for the book club discussion to get my thoughts in order for this one. ~shudder~
November 29, 2008
The novella this book is titled for is absolutely amazing. I met the author at the Dire Reader series in Cambridge, MA, and picked it up there. It wrecked me, I tell you! I was in tears, poolside, in Vegas!
November 1, 2007
I'm not much of a short story reader, but having said that, I really liked this collection of stories. I think the author, John Fulton, really captures and describes some rather uncomfortable truths about life and loss. The writing is just beautiful, in that sort of aching way. Good stuff...
August 22, 2024
3 short stories and 2 novellas. The 3 short stories are simple and well executed. The 2 novellas, 'Animal Girl' and 'The Sleeping Woman', however, make this collection worth the price of admission.
December 21, 2007
Lovely sentences, but the women are (misogynist) cliches.
June 12, 2008
One of the best collections of short stories I have read in a while.
June 27, 2008
I heard John Foulton do a reading from a good portion of this book--very vivid images and quite intriguing stories.
July 19, 2009
Short stories that happen in and around Ann Arbor. The characters are strong, difficult, real and messy (personally, I found the last story, The Sleeping Woman, most compelling).
May 28, 2013
I had to skip a whole section of this book as it detailed experiments on animals. The rest was just weird... I would not recommend this book to anyone.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews