Our Hen House
Our Hen House
  • Home
  • Podcasts
    • Our Hen House Podcast
    • Animal Law Podcast
    • Antiracism Audio Series
    • Limited Series: Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan
  • About
    • About Our Hen House
    • Inside the Coop – Bios
    • Join the Flock
    • Suggest a Guest
    • Press Coverage
    • Policies
    • Contact
  • Learn More
    • Videos
    • Blog
      • Book Reviews
    • Hen Press
    • Why Animal Rights?
      • Animal Testing and Research
      • Clothing
      • Companion Animals
      • Dairy
      • Eggs
      • Entertainment
      • Fishes
      • Meat
      • Veganism
      • Wildlife
      • What to do?
  • Donate
BlogNewsletter — DailyNewsletter — WeeklyReviews

Book Review: “Bones & All” by Camille DeAngelis

by Visiting Animal May 5, 2015
written by Visiting Animal

Today, we are delighted to welcome writer, do-gooder, and animal advocate Paula Burke to Our Hen House to give us her take on the new novel, Bones & All, by Camille DeAngelis.
***
21570066Book Review: Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis
by Paula Burke
What is a novel for? Do we read to be entertained or to learn? Do we want our assumptions questioned or validated? Most books take one side or the other, but the very best novels side-step conventional categorizations. I would count Camille DeAgnelis’ new book as one that achieves an ideal ambivalence.
Bones & All (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) is both a tightly written horror novel and a sweet coming-of-age story about a teenage cannibal in search of some answers. Sixteen-year-old Maren is unable to overcome an inborn desire to eat anyone who lusts for her too much, and she has spent much of her life avoiding the consequences of this curse. Abandoned by her mother, Maren goes on the road in search of her father and her future.
Although she mostly keeps to herself, Maren is unintentionally charming, with a wry sense of humor and an inherent politeness that tends to bring her trouble. She finds it impossible to prevent people from taking an interest in her; like any teenager, she has to sift through their motivations. When Maren finally meets other cannibals, she discovers that they all choose their victims for different reasons, a fact that forces her to grapple with whether or not there is a valid moral argument for making that kind of meaty distinction.
DeAngelis makes no overt mention of veganism or animal rights in her book, and abstaining from eating humans would certainly not make the characters ethical eaters. The author does venture in the acknowledgements, however, that “when people who know I’m vegan hear I’ve written a book about cannibals… they think it’s bizarre, hilarious, or both. The short version is that I believe the world would be a far safer place if we, as individuals and as a society, took a hard, honest look at our practice of flesh eating along with its environmental and spiritual consequences.” This sentiment is undeniably true, but it’s not necessarily a point that is made in this novel. For DeAngelis, cannibalism isn’t a stand-in for eating animals, and she offers no philosophical framework for what anyone should eat. Any argument that is made in this novel is only available in a close reading of the text – but it’s there.
DeAngelis has a keen eye for details and settings, and the world she has created is fully realized and vibrant. She brings the reader up to the very moment where Maren must eat her love interest, and then, sparing her readers the gory details, abruptly stops her description of events: there is only before and after. Before, a human; after, some torn clothing in a plastic bag and fresh blood under Maren’s nails. The actual moment of consumption is an empty one, and that conscious void stands in stark contrast to DeAngelis’ vivid notation of everything else the characters consume.
Bones & All indeed does mention food beyond just human flesh, and the details are doled out on every page: minestrone soup, bacon and eggs, a tuna sandwich, Jell-O, pretzels, Oreos, shrimp cocktail, hobo stew, pink cotton candy, burgers, waffles. This is a book that never forgets that we have to eat to live, and eating human flesh rarely makes the cannibals too full to eat more traditional fare.
Maren’s victims are “a list of names on [her] heart” – she carries a token for each person whose life she has taken, and they exist as individuals in her memory. She is traumatized by any reminder of who they were and what they hoped to achieve in their lifetime. Despite being unable to stop herself, Maren knows that it’s morally wrong to take another life.
It’s not as though she’s indiscriminate. When offered dead cicadas by another child at summer camp, Maren turns away: “I knew about things that weren’t meant to be eaten.” Being compelled to eat people doesn’t make her less sensitive to the taboo against eating other beings. Maren fixates on the smell of what each person has eaten and how it lingers on their breath. The stink of rotten flesh follows the cannibals around, and Maren is constantly rinsing the taste of blood out of her mouth.
Compellingly, this novel doesn’t leave its victims behind, and they remain stubbornly whole. They’re mourned, and the loss of their bodies matters, despite the fact that their destruction was inevitable. When Maren finally finds connection and a way of living, it’s less a triumph than a compromise, and it makes the reader hunger for an alternative that isn’t available in the world of this novel.
Not every book about animal rights makes its underlying ethic obvious, and Bones & All is far from a polemic. Instead, it’s a lovely, thoughtful meditation on taboo and compulsion, desire and repulsion. It’s also a well-told and entertaining novel. Both are equally compelling reasons to pick up a copy.
***
1Paula Burke is a bookseller in Chicago.

Share 1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
previous post
Episode 277: “We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.”
next post
Flock Only! Art Therapy and Temple Grandin: At the Crossroads (PLUS: A Giveaway of Cards from Two Trick Pony!)

You may also like

Episode 252: “…I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”

Be One of The First 50 People to “Join the Flock” and...

Personal Narrative and Liberation w/ Rachel Krantz

Episode 467: Esther Ouwehand

Episode 551: Why People Love and Exploit Animals ft. Kristof Dhont and...

I’m Optimistic About My Pessimism

Fashion Designer Devotes His Life to Animal Causes

Episode 338: The Good Food Institute’s Bruce Friedrich, and A Review of...

Another Way to Look at It: Saving Dogs and Cats Through Photography

Call for Workshops: A Conversation About Food, Consumption, and Sustainability

Search Episodes

Subscribe to our Shows

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyStitcherPocketCastsAmazon Music
More
  • Apple PodcastsApple Podcasts
  • RSSRSS
  • SpotifySpotify
  • Google PodcastsGoogle Podcasts
  • Amazon MusicAmazon Music
  • StitcherStitcher
  • PocketCastsPocketCasts
  • CastBoxCastBox
  • Player.fmPlayer.fm
  • TuneInTuneIn
Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyStitcherPocketCastsAmazon Music
More
  • RSSRSS
  • Apple PodcastsApple Podcasts
  • Google PodcastsGoogle Podcasts
  • SpotifySpotify
  • Amazon MusicAmazon Music
  • StitcherStitcher
  • CastBoxCastBox
  • Player.fmPlayer.fm
  • TuneInTuneIn
  • PocketCastsPocketCasts

Subscribe to OHH Emails

We don’t spam or share your email with others. Privacy policy.

Please Check Your Email to Confirm Your Subscription!

Instagram

Join us On Facebook

Join us On Facebook

Keep in touch

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Donate & Triple Your Impact!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

@2021 - Our Hen House


Back To Top
Our Hen House
  • Home
  • Podcasts
    • Our Hen House Podcast
    • Animal Law Podcast
    • Antiracism Audio Series
    • Limited Series: Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan
  • About
    • About Our Hen House
    • Inside the Coop – Bios
    • Join the Flock
    • Suggest a Guest
    • Press Coverage
    • Policies
    • Contact
  • Learn More
    • Videos
    • Blog
      • Book Reviews
    • Hen Press
    • Why Animal Rights?
      • Animal Testing and Research
      • Clothing
      • Companion Animals
      • Dairy
      • Eggs
      • Entertainment
      • Fishes
      • Meat
      • Veganism
      • Wildlife
      • What to do?
  • Donate
Our Hen House
Search Podcasts
  • Home
  • Podcasts
    • Our Hen House Podcast
    • Animal Law Podcast
    • Antiracism Audio Series
    • Limited Series: Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan
  • About
    • About Our Hen House
    • Inside the Coop – Bios
    • Join the Flock
    • Suggest a Guest
    • Press Coverage
    • Policies
    • Contact
  • Learn More
    • Videos
    • Blog
      • Book Reviews
    • Hen Press
    • Why Animal Rights?
      • Animal Testing and Research
      • Clothing
      • Companion Animals
      • Dairy
      • Eggs
      • Entertainment
      • Fishes
      • Meat
      • Veganism
      • Wildlife
      • What to do?
  • Donate

Subscribe

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyAmazon Music
More
  • Apple PodcastsApple Podcasts
  • RSSRSS
  • SpotifySpotify
  • Google PodcastsGoogle Podcasts
  • Amazon MusicAmazon Music
  • StitcherStitcher
  • PocketCastsPocketCasts
  • CastBoxCastBox
  • Player.fmPlayer.fm
  • TuneInTuneIn
Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyAmazon Music
More
  • RSSRSS
  • Apple PodcastsApple Podcasts
  • Google PodcastsGoogle Podcasts
  • SpotifySpotify
  • Amazon MusicAmazon Music
  • StitcherStitcher
  • CastBoxCastBox
  • Player.fmPlayer.fm
  • TuneInTuneIn
  • PocketCastsPocketCasts

OHH NEWSLETTER

We don’t spam or share your email with others. Privacy policy.

Please Check Your Email to Confirm Your Subscription!

 
Sign In

Keep me signed in until I sign out

Forgot your password?

Password Recovery

A new password will be emailed to you.

Have received a new password? Login here