Animal Crackers: Stories

by Hannah Tinti

With bravura storytelling, daring imagination, and fierce narrative control, this dazzling debut introduces that rare writer who finds humanity in our most unconventional behavior, and the humor beneath our darkest impulses.

In these ten strange, funny, and unnerving stories, animals become the litmus test of our deepest fears and longings. In the title story, an elephant keeper courts danger from his gentle charge; in “Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus,” a headstrong young woman in Africa is lured by the freedom of the monkeys in the trees; in “Talk Turkey,” a boy has secret conversations with the turkeys on his friend’s family’s farm; in “Slim’s Last Ride,” a child plays chilling games with his pet rabbit; in “Gallus Gallus,” a pompous husband projects his anger at his wife onto her prized rooster.

This fresh, inventive debut will introduce Hannah Tinti as one of the most gifted writers of her generation. Enter her world at your own risk, and you will come away bewitched.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Animals, Magical Realism, Book Club, Contemporary, Fantasy

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2004

About the author

Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, and is co-founder and executive edtior of One Story magazine. Her short story collection, ANIMAL CRACKERS, has sold in sixteen countries and was a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway award. Her first novel, THE GOOD THIEF, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, recipient of the American Library Association's Alex Award, and winner of the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Hannah's most recent novel, THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY was a national bestseller and is in development for television with Netflix.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A zoo, a circus, a turkey farm, a natural history museum, an African hunting expedition: several of the 11 stories are set in locales where human–animal interactions are formalized and exploitative, but all mention an animal at least once. In two cases the animal reference seems incidental and the stories really belong elsewhere – “Home Sweet Home,” which opens with the excellent line “Pat and Clyde were murdered on pot roast night,” appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2003; “Hit Man of the Year” feels like a trial run for The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley – and in others there are gratuitous animal deaths at the hands of disturbed boys or angry men, which is always a strike against a book for me.

I only found four stand-outs here. “Reasonable Terms” is a playful piece of magic realism in which a zoo’s giraffes get the gorilla to write out a list of demands for their keepers and, when agreement isn’t forthcoming, stage a mass suicide. In “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life,” a woman takes revenge on her boa constrictor-keeping boyfriend. In “Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus,” which reminded me of Ned Beauman’s madcap style, a boarding school teenager eludes the private detectives her parents have hired to keep tabs on her and makes it all the way to Ghana, where a new species of monkey is named after her. My favorite of all was “Preservation,” in which Mary saves wildlife paintings through her work as an art conservator but can’t save her father from terminal illness.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was hard for me-- I admit I only read the first five or six stories and then returned it to the library. The writing is excellent and unusual but every story involves a gruesome death, either human or animal, and I was having nightmares. (It didn't help that I was reading a story before going to bed.)

Doesn't it seem like stories are much more likely to be disturbing than novels? Once you're in a novel, you have some expectation of whether, in the next 25 pages, something will occur that will make your stomach turn (I guess if you choose thrillers, the expectation is high and you're looking for that-- I don't really read them). For instance, Jane Austen is a pretty safe bet, which likely explains her enduring popularity.

I enjoy short stories and I might venture to say that is harder to write a truly great short story than a great novel, but I turn to novels more frequently partly, I suspect, out of the safe harbor they provide. Too often, short stories jangle my nerves.

Back to Tinti-- I still love The Good Thief, even if there is some gruesomeness in it-- and I do recommend this collection, especially if you have a stronger stomach than I seem to.

[C.J. Maughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I. Loved. This. Book!
It's a book of short stories all having something to do with animals in some way, shape or form. Fair warning, the stories can border on dark and often sweep right over the edge of that line (which I personally love, but I'm aware it isn't everyone's cup of tea), but I think that's what makes the stories great. The stories take turns that I didn't see coming and had me completely enthralled. I couldn't put it down.
The characters are real without being overwrought and with just enough detail to make me care about them without making it feel like a college fiction publication.
Honestly, I will be reading this book again. It has a cleared its way into one of my top favorite books of all time. The author's voice is unique and there are so many small details that I rushed over in an effort to find out how the story ended.
And come on, that title? Geeze. Fantastic.

[Bitchin' Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her language is lovely, but her topics are dark and disturbing...so much so that I felt uncomfortable and shocked at some of short stories' content. There may be one of two of the stories I may recommend, but this isn't a book I'm going to praise to everyone I meet. Most likely, it will never be mentioned. You have been forewarned.

[Ruben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Psé. Algun fa riure. Molts són incòmodes. No cal llegir-lo…

[Robert Sheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection ranges from humorous to horrifying, weird and wonderful.

[Editrix (Amy Lewis) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did. I found the characters and stories flat and unappealing, and while I'm not terribly squeamish, some of the callous violence (especially toward animals) was repulsive and (at times) gratuitous.

The only humorous bit was the list of demands from three giraffes to their zookeeper. I kept hoping for more of the wit and humor promised on the book's back cover, but none of the "humour beneath our darkest impulses" was apparent to me.

The Author's Note following the final story, "Miss Waldron's Red Colobus," was completely unnecessary. I'm not sure why Tinti needed to tell us that this was a fictionalized tale based on actual people; it added nothing to the story and sucked from it what little life it had.

[Cheryl Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah Tinti's story collection is a rare beast: a mix of mild absurdity (unionized elephants, a grown man who refuses to tie his shoes) and reality that scrapes along the underside of your soul. Similarly, the animals in question are both literal and metaphorical. The rabbit a troubled boy throws out the window is real and bloody and injured, but the snake a woman cooks and feeds to her ex-boyfriend is an act of turning herself inside out. Our society saves some of its worst violence for animals. If you want to write about violent human behavior, about freedom and captivity, boiled turkeys and yowling mother cats are a good place to start.

[Chris - Quarter Press Editor · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the exception of Amy Hempel, I don't think I've ever given five stars to a collection of short stories. Usually, there are too many misses for me to go above three stars. But there was something about Tinti's writing that allowed me to forgive/gloss over the shortcomings.

These stories are bizarre in the best kind of way. Tinti's sense of humor is wonderful, and her created worlds turn "reality" on its head just enough for anything and everything to happen.

Seriously, good and fresh stuff. I can't wait to track down her novel.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hannah Tinti is a fine writer. Witty, visceral, she gets to the heart of the matter with a few well-chosen words. These stories showcase that talent. Many of them are bloody and violent. In "Bloodworks" there is a child who is violent towards his sister, classmates, and others. He eventually kills and keeps as a trophy, a newborn kitten. Yep. It's in here. So is another story with a violent son, the very brief "Slim's Last Ride" which refers to a pet rabbit whose owner is a young boy who continuously tosses his bunny up into the air and lets it drop until the bunny does not survive the final "ride." In "Bloodworks," there's cheeky references to diagnoses and inept parenting with various medications tried. Mental illness is so often used to create monster characters--used for a shock effect instead of explored with insight. I think that's what happened in "Bloodwork." Here's a rundown of the other stories:

"Animal Crackers" - First person, present tense. The "I" character, who takes care of an elephant, tells about the caregivers in a traveling menagerie, finally confessing to brutally beating his wife. He places his head underneath the elephant's foot and lets the elephant crush him.

"Home Sweet Home" - 3rd person, past tense. After taking in and mothering her husband's love child, Miguel, a woman murders her neighbors when she finds out her husband is having an affair with the woman of the couple.

"Reasonable Terms" - A zookeeper develops a new empathy for the giraffes in his care after the giraffes give him a list of demands. Told in both the giraffe's and the zookeeper's POVs. (No violence warning needed here.)

"Preservation" - 3rd person, present tense. Mary, an artist working on restoring paintings in a natural history museum, experiences a delusion that a stuffed bear comes alive. She's also under stress from taking care of her artist father, dying of AIDS.

"Hit Man of the Year" - 3rd person, past tense. The story of Ambruzzo, raised by his bakery-owning grandmother, who becomes a hitman and holds an abiding torch for a childhood classmate.
Various colorful murders are described, but no animal harm.

"Talk Turkey" - Danny, whose father owns a turkey farm, gets assigned a group project with Ralph, and Joey, and they make a report about the turkey farm. Ralph thinks the turkeys talk to him. They all go on a trip together, stealing a car and then eventually get caught. Their fathers come get them. Joey's mother (Joey's father beats him) gives him an envelop of cash and he does not return.

"How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life" - 3rd person, present tense. A woman's boyfriend leaves her with his boa constrictor who becomes a sort-of substitute for the boyfriend who has left. She cares for the snake until she eventually lops off the snake's head.

"Gallus, Gallus" - 3rd person, past tense. Alan Perkins owns a candy shop and has never learned to tie his shoes. Mrs. Perkins ties them for him each day and then goes off to feed her precious chickens. When her rooster goes missing, she looks for him and meets Thomas Dewey who reminds her of her pre-marriage when she was studying to be a vet tech. The rooster eventually lands on one of Perkin's candy shop workers and Mr. Perkins beats it to death.

"Miss Waldron's Red Colobus" - Miss Waldron is a young girl who's sent to a convent to be "tamed" by the nuns. She grows up to fall in love with a collector who shoots wild animals for a natural history museum's collection. She eventually leaves this person and the detectives whom her father has long employed to keep tabs on her lose all trace of her. Based on the fact that there is a monkey that was named for a natural history collector's female companion, indeed called "Miss Waldron's Red Colobus". This is the last story in the collection and after all that violence, it's hard to get into this light-hearted farce. Monkeys do get shot, so there is that.

What is the theme? That humans are awful? That animals are mistreated, abused and tortured by humans for a variety of reasons? Then we have a few slight, light-hearted stories stuck in. There doesn't have to be a theme, a point, a moral, to any short story collection, or any story for that matter, but I think it's natural to seek one out. I read Tinti's The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley and loved it. It was violent too, but the violence had an intrinsic role to play since Samuel Hawley was a hit man.

[Jessica Klahr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was so dark and sinister at times and so honest and smart at others. It was remarkable how much the author was able to inject into these stories and these characters. There were definitely some indicators as to the novelist Hannah Tinti would become now. I enjoyed subtlety she included the animals in the individual story. Some favorites were “home sweet home,” for its ability to encompass a raunchy and daring whodunnit into such a short page count, “reasonable terms,” where three giraffes at a zoo write a list of complaints to their zookeeper, for being the only thing in a book that has actually made me laugh out loud in a long time, “talk turkey,” a story of three teenage boys who rebel against what’s set before them with a strong sense of place, “how to revitalize the snake in your life,” where a woman develops a strangely intimate relationship with an ex-boyfriend’s snake that she lets roam freely throughout her home, and “miss waldron’s red colobus,” about a young woman who is sent to several boarding schools at the insistence of her father and the people she meets along the way, including three private detective reporting on her every mood.

[Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really couldn't get on with this book. I might have had more patience with it at another time, but when I picked it up today and read the first few stories I just couldn't think of a reason to make myself read the rest. I very rarely stop reading a book without finishing it. Even if I don't like a book, I usually find I can learn something from it. I didn't get that with this book. A one star rating might seem a bit harsh, given that I think there's plenty about this book that's perfectly OK. I didn't find the characters very multifaceted, but that's not uncommon in short stories (although it didn't help that I didn't find the characters very appealing either). The structure of the stories I read wasn't bad. I just didn't like the tone of the writing - there was something a bit too 'look at me, I'm writing Literature!' about it, like the stories were intended to be Literary Works, and not just stories.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is difficult to rate, because it's very good but I didn't like it. It's an extremely uncomfortable read. The stories are all meant to be ominous and trigger a certain sense of dread and discomfort that only grows as you progress through the pages, but that you can't quite put your finger on.

So, in that sense, all these stories are very well crafted. If that description appeals to you, then this is your type of book. I just didn't find them very enjoyable.

There are three exceptions to this: Reasonable Terms, a story about three giraffes who go on strike when the zookeeper doesn't meet their demands, Hit Man of the Year, a tale of mafia boy grown in a bakery like bread, and Miss Waldron's Red Colobus, last in the volume, a charming tale of a feisty woman turned explorer. These three stories are much lighter in tone, full of charm and humour.

[Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Animal Crackers" is the debut work by Hannah Tinti and consists of a collection of short stories that have animals as a common thread through the stories.
This is NOT a children's book by any means when you think animal stories. The short stories deal with a number of serious topics: abuse, murder, infidelity, relationships and other violent or unusual happenings.

There are all kinds of animals here... from your basic dogs, cats and birds... to bears, elephants, snakes and even turkeys.

The stories are varied: a mafia 'hit man', a jealous wife who murders the woman her husband was cheating with... and the woman's husband, a woman who gets involved with a snake a neighbor gives her... and more.

There is a touch of fantasy in some of the stories... specifically the giraffes issue demands for better conditions at the zoo.

Interesting debut.

[Ricky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serendipity brought me to this author, and I'm glad it did. A page and a half from the end of the 1st story I thought it was good, but after reading the final paragraph, I rated it VERY good. The second story was excellent - in the presentation of the characters, in the presentation of the mystery - so much so that I rate it as one of the best murder short stories I've read. The balance of the collection maintains a very high level of writing.

[Brigitte · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed Tinti's two novels and so I decided to read her collection of stories. Most of the stories here contained gory details of animal mutilation that seemed, to me, pointless. Each story contained a vague or nonexistent epiphany, and I was left confused about the character's arc and/or theme of the story.

[Devon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among most of the short stories in the collection is quite a bit of violence/gore specific to animals, which made this a difficult read. Being vegetarian (trying to go vegan), it definitely made me uncomfortable and tear up at some points. However, art is supposed to make you uncomfortable. While this did unnerve me, I find Tinti's descriptive abilities and writing style very captivating.

[Courtney Chappell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was thoroughly disappointed in this book. The back promised the stories were, "original and funny" but I thought gruesome and lackluster were more like it. I hated reading about the unnecessary deaths and cruelty of animals. I would not read this book again.

[Carly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing of this book was very good, but the gruesomeness was too much, and I wasn't able to finish the last few short stories. A death of human or animal was the ending of all the stories I read, and despite the good variety of stories and settings, the deaths turned me off.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really strange read for me. Tinti's writing is undeniably captivating, but I had a really, really hard time stomaching the gore/gruesome animal deaths. I really enjoyed the first three or four stories, but after that I found myself just waiting for it to end.

[Nerak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing, thought provoking, discussion-worthy stories from a talented writer. Worth reading and re-reading. Each story centers around a totemic animal, whimsical, mysterious, original and touching.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

These were interesting variations on the theme of animals. They were definitely not the cats-playing-piano type of animal stories; they were so much more original than that. I would have given it a higher rating, but I so loved The Good Thief even more.

[Aydin Truong · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mystery box of stories that are disorientating without meaning, or surprisingly thought provoking - but on average prolly close to the former sadly. They are all def nasty yucky gross though just as a warning.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

She is an incredible story teller. I am looking forward to reading whatever she publishes next.

[Gemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have been a 4. Beautiful writing and unsettling stories, but the animal cruelty tempered my enjoyment.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first story was bad and it didn't get any better. I finished only because it allowed me to cross off "a book of short stories" from my reading challenge.

[Erica Roth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were pieces I loved and moments that horrified... my dark side gives it a 5 but my soul was bothered and just can’t let me.

[Ari Raliegh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one dark tale after another with the occasional !adult! theme thrown in.