Review by Michele Filgate A couple of years ago, Paul Harding set the standard for slender books with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tinkers. It’s appropriate, then, that he wrote a glowing blurb for Justin Torres’ We the Animals, a fiercely gorgeous debut that doesn’t quite crest 150 pages. In startlingly brief chapters, Torres sketches a bold portrait of childhood scars and imprinted memories. He writes of brotherhood, family, sexuality, identity, and innocence lost. Through the vantage point of its unnamed narrator, the novel traces one American family: the narrator and his brothers Manny and Joel, plus Ma (a white woman) […]
