A Real Animal

DEBUT Convinced that she has become a leopard, Lucy strips naked and climbs into a tree on her college campus. This incident is not unlike the sexual assault she endured while studying abroad in Australia: surreal and devastating. The emotional fallout puts additional strain on her relationships with everybody, including herself, and she begins to question who she really is. Listless but hopeful, Lucy ultimately finds power in introspection. Her unique, unfiltered thoughts shine through the mundanity of her daily life. Reflections on autonomy, estrangement, and victimhood parallel meticulous descriptions of the sprawling freeways she struggles to navigate alone. She graduates and moves out of her parents’ house in Boston, trying her luck in deindustrialized Middle America. She dates Ellis, a sexually abusive loner, and then Liam, a tradesperson who fails to connect with her. The vacations that she takes with each man force her to uncover her long-suppressed desires. Complicating her journey to self-discovery are unforeseen but inevitable personal tragedies that plague her twenties.