Sneak Peek of New Animal, a debut novel by Ella Baxter

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Praise for New Animal Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, Shortlist “In her incredible debut, Baxter combines dark humor with a complex protagonist and bold narration to both astound and devastate her readers. Amelia is a memorable heroine who is raw with grief as she struggles with and explores the paradox of finding harmony in the dichotomy of life and death.”

Emily Park, Booklist “At turns a rollicking sexual romp almost slapstick in its intensity and an existential meditation filled with the languid profundity of bodies at their final rest, this unusual novel navigates the most treacherous of emotional territories—the fault lines between love and grief, sex and death—with a deliberate lack of grace and real charm. A tragicomic debut by an impressive new voice.”

Kirkus “Trying to escape trauma by running away is hardly a new narrative concept but Baxter’s writing is so forthright, her protagonist so raw and unmediated in her feelings, thoughts and flailing at the ‘arrowhead of sorrow’ that New Animal makes for compelling reading.”

Thuy On, The Sydney Morning Herald “Baxter’s prose is a living thing, wild and snarling, its jagged claws and honed teeth unforgiving and relentless. Amelia stokes empathy as a woman seeking absolution down dead ends. Her codependency and repression are addressed in frank terms—‘Other people have always been the canary in the mine for me’—and every beat of dark comedy is paired with an empathetic wince as Amelia forces herself past her limits. New Animal is at turns graphic, disturbing, and tender—in other words: human.”

Danielle Ballantyne, Foreword

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL “New Animal is a wonderfully tender book. Ella Baxter doesn’t shy away from any of the messiness of humanity, choosing instead to lean in, hard, and unpack all the ways that grief breaks us down and ultimately reshapes us. It’s feral and raw, laugh out loud funny in parts, and absolutely the kind of family mess I love best. Baxter is a delightful writer and New Animal is a hell of a read.”

Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things “New Animal is filled with death and darkness, yet Baxter’s prose feels so very alive. A novel that’s core is ultimately one of hope, a complex, heartfelt ballad to the strange, sloppy ways we find ourselves growing into the people we were meant to become.”

Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl “I inhaled Ella Baxter’s New Animal, which is the sort of animal that is all spine, all teeth. The deftness of her prose, which is so damn funny, along with such a poignant and true and entertaining story, make this a book that positively glitters. Ella Baxter’s New Animal is an animal that is so animal it’s human.”

Lindsay Hunter, author of Eat Only When You’re Hungry “I loved this macabre, mordant, and very moving book. New Animal surprised and comforted me with its deft investigations of grief, power, and self, and with its beautiful prose. This is an economical novel that packs a major emotional punch.”

Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State “New Animal is morbidly life-affirming, hilariously grief-stricken, sexy and lonely and lovely. Like a first date that goes way deep, like a coffin buried not quite deep enough. Ella Baxter’s prose is an exciting new animal I won’t soon forget.”

Hilary Leichter, author of Temporary

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL “How Baxter manages to make the journey of a motherless funerary mortician surrendering to the Tasmanian BDSM scene feel universal is testament to what this unique novel has to say about the effects of mourning on our bodies and our souls. Raw, courageous, and—somehow—super fun.”

Courtney Maum, author of Touch and Costalegre “Ella Baxter’s New Animal is a raw, arresting debut, toothy and surprising—a novel that manages to deeply consider the molten core of human experience (read: death, sex, memory, grief) while also poking fun at it. The result is an affecting, sometimes alarming balancing act that will worm its way inside your consciousness and absolutely refuse to leave.”

Emily Temple, author of The Lightness

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New Animal a novel

ELLA BAXTER

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WHO WE ARE Two Dollar Radio is a family-

run outfit dedicated to reaffirming the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry. We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.

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All Rights Reserved ISBN4 9781953387127 Also available as an Ebook.

E-ISBN4 9781953387134

COPYRIGHT4 © 2021 BY ELLA BAXTER

Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.

Book Club & Reader Guide of questions and topics for discussion is available at twodollarradio.com

SOME RECOMMENDED LOCATIONS FOR READING NEW ANIMAL:

Pretty much anywhere because books are portable and the perfect technology!

AUTHOR PHOTO4 Leah Jing McIntosh

Image from page 110 COVER PHOTO4 of “Coast watch,” 1979, UNC Sea Grant College Program, https://flic.kr/p/xsM2oj

First published in 2021 by Allen & Unwin in Australia.

ANYTHING ELSE? Yes. Do not copy this book—with the exception of quotes used in critical essays and reviews—without the prior written permission from the copyright holder and publisher. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. WE MUST ALSO POINT OUT THAT THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Any resemblances to names, places, incidents, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental or are used fictitiously.

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For Lumi

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New Animal

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Chapter One

There is a man with kind eyes and crooked teeth in my bed. He’s facing me and smiling, preparing to talk. I cough once, loudly, because talking is unnecessary at this point.

We both watched patiently as he prodded my vagina with his hangnailed finger, and we took turns sighing mid-thrust.

Afterward, Adam squashes my memory foam pillow until it’s wedged beneath his armpit for support. He squints at my framed certificate hanging above the bookshelf. My stepdad Vincent paid for the framing in honor of all the technical skills I had to learn, because he likes to celebrate stamina and effort. My mother even made a cake.

“Certificate IV in Embalming, awarded to Amelia Aurelia,” Adam reads aloud.

“I tend to focus more on the cosmetics aspect,” I explain.

“Right,” he says, turning toward me. “Funeral makeup.” He purses his lips while continuing to crush my only good pillow.

I kick at the bed sheet until it’s down around our ankles. The cotton has absorbed the smell of sweat and salt. Some foot odor and a slight muskiness lingers. I toss the whole thing onto the floor and lie back on the bed, uncovered but still sticky in the muggy room. The February moon must be close to full, because

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL the clouds are low and brightly backlit. I can’t help but feel that if it were a bit darker, we wouldn’t be making so much accidental eye contact. He smothers a yawn, and I force my own mouth into a yawn shape so that we can yawn together and pass some time.

Adam picks up his wineglass from the bedside table and I watch him, wondering how I would do his makeup if he passed. Accentuate his ambiguous heritage maybe. Fill in his eyebrows and sweep a bit of bronzer along each temple. His hair would look lovely brushed back, too. Some of that high shine cream could really bring out the warm brunette tones.

A burgundy shirt.

I glance quickly at the side of his face.

Forest green would also suit him.

As the pause stretches out, and he shows no sign of leaving, I wonder if he has assumed he’s sleeping the night.

I get up to use the bathroom; it’s important to urinate after sex, otherwise bacteria climbs up your urethra like a staircase.

As I slide the adjoining door shut behind me, I can hear Adam change position in the bed less than a meter away. I can even hear him scratch an itch. I lean over to the sink and run the tap until the sound of water is louder than anything else, and my vagina can finally relax.

I take a moment to acknowledge my naked body. Longlimbed with the slightest hint of a tan. I turn to the side to look at my face in the mirror. The freckles smattered across my nose and cheeks are best seen in morning light, when they look rose gold. Under fluorescent lighting I just seem spotty. Kind of warm on the color scale—reddish hair. Auburn usually, but fire when the setting sun hits it. Dark eyes and a long, aquiline nose.

It’s hawkish. I have been told a few times by people not related to me that my face is full of character.

I flush the toilet and wash my hands slowly. I’m unsure if he will ever leave. I could initiate sex again but make it better 4

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL by telling him to slow down until he’s barely moving. This slow? he might say—like they all say, incredulous. Even slower, I will tell him.

I shake my hands dry and slide the door open, making immediate eye contact with Adam, who raises his empty wineglass toward me.

“Refill?”

I slip through the beaded curtain separating the bed and the kitchenette, and it clatters together in a loose tangle behind me.

“It’s getting late,” I say, sliding a bottle of wine behind the kettle.

“So will you be working on someone tomorrow?” he asks while pulling at some leg hairs on his exposed thigh.

“Yes. There’s a big funeral, actually.”

“Why big?”

“She’s young and it was suicide.” I cross my arms and check the clock. It’s almost midnight.

“Oh,” Adam says. “Wrists or neck?”

“Wrists,” I say, rejoining him in bed. “In the bath.”

“Shit,” he says.

I’m used to people impulsively asking the most macabre questions, then being unsettled by the answers.

What does a body smell like? Chemicals. Sometimes like talcum powder. Sour.

What does a body feel like? Firm and cold. Clammy. Heavy.

Does it ever move? Yes. But you begin to expect the slow decompression. It helps to think of them as old balloons at times. They deflate.

Does it frighten you? No. Never. Sometimes. Rarely.

I can see Adam gearing up to keep talking, but I don’t have the patience to answer all his questions in a way that will both satiate his curiosity and maintain my professionalism, so I reach for my phone, select the first album that appears, then lie back as the opening bars start to tinkle out from the tiny speaker.

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL Snare drum fights for space. I am twenty-eight, almost twentynine. The tambourine commences. I should turn this down so it doesn’t wake Mum and Vincent. Relentless rattling metal of the tambourine. Or my brother, but he should really move in with Hugh and Carmen. Tambourine outplays the snare. He’s thirty now. Trumpet interrupts them both. Time to go, Simon, you lump.

Trumpet and tambourine fight. At least I live in the bungalow, not the main house. Trumpet wins. It has a separate entrance.

The main house is fundamentally suburban. Two brown leather couches and one pine bookshelf, which proudly displays a large collection of Reader’s Digest. But the bungalow is different. It has a rug woven from strips of rags. It has floor cushions, most of them remnants from when Vincent had a mild interest in Buddhism and used it as his meditation zone. For one whole winter he wore kimonos and spoke softly when he remembered to. As he slowly lost interest, I equally slowly moved the contents of my bedroom into the bungalow until all my furniture surrounded his, and just like that we swapped places.

“Is it gross?” Adam asks.

“It’s the opposite.” I rub one eye and let out another wide yawn.

“Lovely?” He looks suspicious.

“Very.”

The deceased are beyond beautiful, but only because they are so emptied of worry. Everything tense or unlikable is gone. Like a shopping center in the middle of the night, they have lost all the chaos and clatter.

“Is it gory?” Adam wants to know. “Like, when you see how they died?”

I stare steadily at his hands, which are clasped together.

“It can be.”

I think about all the skulls I’ve had to drill back together, and all the wounds I’ve filled with plaster of Paris. On some days, I’ll unzip a bag that contains a body so broken it has become 6

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL like shards of ice; like unearthed soil. There are hours in which all I do is map a whole person out. And even though he’s asking, I won’t tell him that we are both two long, fleshy sacks full of bones and electricity, and that one day the switch will be flicked.

We are on, and then we are off.

I’ve told people down at the pub that life rests like a layer of chiffon over a body: one puff of wind and you’re dead. It’s a revelation that doesn’t sit easily with most, but I’ve learned to adjust by compartmentalizing. I can separate feelings into imaginary boxes inside the mind. In one box, I put all the delicate, fractured wounds of the bodies I see all day. I fill it up with uncomfortable emotions and images. Then, in another box, I shove all the vivid warmth and liveliness of the people I see at night. I need both boxes, one balancing out the other, me pingponging between them.

Adam crosses his legs, letting his limp penis hang between us, somehow a part of the conversation but disengaged.

“Do they look empty?”

He seems genuinely thrilled that we are talking.

“Sure,” I say. It’s not inaccurate.

“So what made you do this for a job?”

“It’s my family’s business, but I would have picked it anyway.”

“You love it that much?”

“I do.”

I squeeze his thigh, pressing each finger one by one into his leg. I push my chest forward and gaze at him while trying to lengthen my neck and look elegant. Shakespeare once wrote that two people together is a beast with two backs, and most nights I find myself trying to combine with someone else to become this two-headed thing with flailing limbs, chomping teeth and tangled hair. This new animal. I am medicated by another body. Drunk on warm skin. Dumbly high on the damp friction between them and me.

“You’re quite confident, aren’t you?” he says.

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL “Yes.” “And you seem to want to have sex again?”

“Yep.” “Do you want me to go down on you?” he asks.

“Not right now,” I say.

I stand at the foot of the bed and put my t-shirt back on, and then cross one leg in front of the other so that my vulva is at least partly covered. I find that redressing sometimes helps to get things moving again. There has to be an element of desire in order for us both to get a bit lost in the mix.

“I want you to say to me, I’m going to ruin you, in a low voice,” I tell him as he kneels up on the bed, facing me.

He frowns, confused. “I’m going to ruin you?” He wobbles slightly and places one hand over his crotch.

“More heat, please,” I say.

He raises a hand half-heartedly before dropping it and looking out the window. “I am going to absolutely ruin you.”

“Say to me: I’m going to obliterate everything you know to be real.”

“Amelia, no. I don’t want to.”

“Say the other bit then.”

“I will ruin you. I. Will. Ruin. You.” “Perfect,” I say. “Now lie down and put the pillow under your hips.”

Adam falls asleep afterward, which most men are wont to do, but I kick him near his knee.

He sits up and opens one eye.

“You need to leave,” I say, trying to look less mean by hunching my shoulders and letting my long bangs fall across my face.

Crankiness is pinned to the structure of my features. I was made to look mad; it’s in my genetics, and I have to make a lot of effort to seem tiny and cute. “I sleep better when I’m alone.”

I switch the bedside lamp on and stare at him while he shields his eyes. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he picks up his clothes 8

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL using his toes and passes them back to his fumbling hands.

Pausing, yawning, and sighing before each action.

“Why do I feel like I’m not going to see you again?” he asks while standing up and placing a hand on the doorknob.

Turn it. I will him to turn it. Turn the handle, Adam.

I shake my head. “Don’t be silly.” I take one last look at him.

I stay sitting upright, listening to him step quietly down the garden path, only relaxing when I hear the front gate open and shut. I crawl across the bed and pull the curtains closed before lying back and pulling the sheet over me, smoothing it down on either side until I can feel that there are no creases. My spine curves into the mattress. My jaw releases with a creak and my molars stop aching.

I open the dating app on my phone and scroll down the screen until I find Adam’s smiling face. I delete it and keep refreshing my recent matches until four new ones pop up. I copy and paste a message to each of them.

Free tonight?

Free tonight?

Free tonight?

Free tonight?

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“New Animal is morbidly life-affirming, hilariously grief-stricken, sexy and lonely and lovely. Like a first date that goes way deep, like a coffin buried not quite deep enough. Ella Baxter’s prose is an exciting new animal I won’t soon forget.”

—hilary leichter, author of temporary “New Animal is filled with death and darkness, yet Baxter’s prose feels so very alive. A novel that’s core is ultimately one of hope, a complex, heartfelt ballad to the strange, sloppy ways we find ourselves growing into the people we were meant to become.” —jean kyoung frazier, author of pizza girl “Ella Baxter’s New Animal is a raw, arresting debut, toothy and surprising— a novel that manages to deeply consider the molten core of human experience (read: death, sex, memory, grief) while also poking fun at it. The result is an affecting, sometimes alarming balancing act that will worm its way inside your consciousness and absolutely refuse to leave.”

—emily temple, author of the lightness “At turns a rollicking sexual romp almost slapstick in its intensity and an existential meditation filled with the languid profundity of bodies at their final rest, this unusual novel navigates the most treacherous of emotional territories—the fault lines between love and grief, sex and death—with a deliberate lack of grace and real charm. A tragicomic debut by an impressive new voice.” —kirkus reviews “How Baxter manages to make the journey of a motherless funerary mortician surrendering to the Tasmanian BDSM scene feel universal is testament to what this unique novel has to say about the effects of mourning on our bodies and our souls. Raw, courageous, and—somehow—super fun.”

—courtney maum, author of touch and costalegre “I inhaled Ella Baxter’s New Animal, which is the sort of animal that is all spine, all teeth. The deftness of her prose, which is so damn funny, along with such a poignant and true and entertaining story, make this a book that positively glitters. Ella Baxter’s New Animal is an animal that is so animal it’s human.”

—lindsay hunter, author of eat only when you’re hungry

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