Promising new voice in fiction Lindsay Stern’s debut novel
is a delicious sendup of academia at an elite New England college, and a dark and
engaging comedy of errors in the vein of Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot and Lauren
Groff’s Fates and Furies.
Stern was initially inspired to write The Study of Animal Languages while
in college, when she entered her professor’s office and noticed that, although
no one was speaking, the lie detector he kept in jest on the cabinet across
from his desk was lighting up. The machine was picking up the melody of an
apparently dishonest bird outside the window. She was struck by our limited
understanding of the meanings of these birdsongs — noises we tend to tune out
as meaningless — and, by extension, our sometimes absurdly limited
interpretations of our own language. The result is the story of Ivan and Prue,
a married couple of professors — purported experts in communication — who
nonetheless hardly seem capable of discussing even the weather with one
another.
The trouble starts immediately, when the impatient and
uptight Ivan drives to Vermont to pick up his unpredictable and un-medicated
bipolar father-in-law, Frank. Free-spirited Prue, Frank’s daughter, is a
pioneer in the emerging field of biolinguistics, and she’s slated to give what
everyone hopes will be a tenure-inducing lecture on birdsong. The married pair of
opposites has thus far managed to weather their differences, but the perfect
storm of Frank’s erratic behavior, a surprising lecture from Prue implicating
her colleagues, and her infatuation with a novel written by the college’s
handsome new writer-in-residence drives Ivan to untoward actions and threatens
to upend the life he and Prue have built together.
The Study of Animal
Languages is a novel about the limitations of language, the fragility
of love, and the ways we misunderstand each other and ourselves. Stern’s is a
dazzling new voice, insightful and entertaining—one that left me questioning
every conversation I’ve ever had.
Lindsay
Stern is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the recipient of
a Watson Fellowship and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers magazine.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in comparative literature at Yale
University. The Study of Animal
Languages is her first
novel.
Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of
Philosophy and Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Science
in Society at Wesleyan University where she also coordinates Wesleyan Animal
Studies. Her work lies at the intersection of ethical and political theory and
practice, with a particular focus on issues that impact those often overlooked in
traditional ethical investigations, including women, people of color,
incarcerated people, non-human animals. She is currently working to unpack
carceral logics by thinking through a complex set of issues like dignity,
self-respect, empathy, disposability, and hope and hopelessness. She is the
author of Ethics and Animals
and Entangled Empathy, among
others, and the editor of many books, most recently Critical Terms for Animal Studies and Animaladieswith
Fiona Probyn-Rapsey.