The memory of animals A novel

Review by Booklist Review

Neffy is in it for the money. Or so says the marine biologist who enrolls in a vaccine trial for the deadly Dropsy virus that's decimating the world. Exposed to the virus and injected with the vaccine in the hospital, Neffy wakes up to a bizarre environment. The medical professionals have left. The few people who remain are unexposed test subjects. The meager food portions are depleting quickly. Outside the London hospital building, the virus rages, with new variants killing mercilessly. Probably immune Neffy is the only person who could venture outside and find food. Interspersed with the taut hospital narrative are two other story lines: Neffy's love of octopuses and descriptions of her past, particularly her father's illness and an illicit love interest. Fuller (Unsettled Ground, 2021) is best when describing the slow unraveling of the hospital group. The other sections are distracting and feel disjointed. Nevertheless, the novel makes us ponder what we owe each other as humans. It turns out the kindness of strangers can only take us so far.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Fuller (Unsettled Ground) crafts a haunting novel of second chances set in a near-future pandemic. Twenty-something Neffy, still grieving the loss of her father and embarrassed by the crumbling of her marine biology career after a professional misstep, signs up as a vaccine test subject during the early days of the pandemic. While Neffy and her fellow volunteers are isolated in a London hospital as they undergo treatment, the virus, nicknamed "Dropsy," develops a new and deadly variant, which causes sudden memory loss before certain death. Neffy, who may have developed immunity, is identified as the group's best hope for the future, but after fellow test subject Leon introduces her to a new technology called Revisiting, which allows her to relive moments from her past, she becomes increasingly drawn to the treatment. Fuller's intricately structured narrative makes great use of the Revisiting conceit, allowing Neffy's history--including her love for an octopus she once cared for at an aquarium--to wrap itself around an increasingly nightmarish present, as Neffy uncovers secrets about the virus's progression that other volunteers have been keeping from her. The entwined pain and pleasure of memory is at the heart of Neffy's story, as is the hard work of establishing trust and finding forgiveness, particularly for oneself. This is a pandemic novel, yes, but one that radically transcends the label. (June)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Fuller's compelling fifth novel (after the Costa Award-winning Unsettled Ground) takes place during a near-future pandemic that has caused widespread death, with people panicking, roads jammed, and supermarket shelves bare. At a secret lab near London, healthy young volunteers lured by a lot of money are to receive an untested vaccine, followed by an injection of the virus. Marine biologist Neffy is the first volunteer to be injected, but her bad reaction frightens the staff and other volunteers, who make a hasty exit. Unconscious for a week, Neffy recovers to the horror of being abandoned and locked in the lab with only four other volunteers, none of whom have received the vaccine. With no rescue in sight, Neffy has plenty to think about in addition to their survival, and her presumed immunity means that she is the one to venture outside the lab to face roving gangs, infected people, and the putrefying dead to bring back food and water. Their last hope is a barely running ambulance that could allow them to escape to the countryside for a better future. VERDICT A riveting, don't-miss account of what some may see as the reality to come; long-time Fuller readers will relish this completely engrossing story, which questions what we value most.--Donna Bettencourt

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A former marine biologist struggles to survive a global pandemic while reconciling with her difficult past. In a future that bears an uncanny resemblance to the present, Neffy, a 27-year-old former marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial, perhaps the last chance to halt a devastating worldwide pandemic. While spending three weeks in a hospital in London, Neffy and four other volunteers--Rachel, Piper, Yahiko, and Leon--watch in horror as the outside world slides further into chaos and debate what they will and won't do to try to make it out alive. Meanwhile, through experimental technology that enables people to revisit memories, which Leon was working on before the pandemic, Neffy is tempted to lose herself in the past, reliving a love affair, her childhood in England and Greece, and a brazen choice that led to the end of her career. Fuller, the author of the Costa Novel Award--winning Unsettled Ground (2021), among other books, excels in examining the everyday moments at the heart of a life: Rachel scrolling through the pictures on her phone, hoping that one day social media will come back; the group celebrating a birthday by drinking water and pretending that it's vodka. In quotidian and thrilling moments alike, Fuller expertly grapples with the sickeningly real personal and ethical complexities of human survival. In the end, however, she seems to trade her attention to nuance for an ill-defined, ethereal optimism, especially in the hurried conclusion. The novel may end on a hopeful note, but in doing so, it compromises its potential to be a great post-apocalyptic novel and instead rises just above the recent spate of pandemic-inspired narratives. A memorable meditation on how the human struggle to survive in captivity is not so different than that of our animal kin. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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My phone has run out of battery. I lean out of the bed, almost at falling point, following the wire to plug it in. Rest. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and search around for the TV remote, pat the bedcovers, remember that there isn't one. I see a glimpse of my skin between top and shorts, purple bruising on my sides and belly as though I have been kicked repeatedly. It's sore when I press it. My shorts are wet and the sheet is wet too but I don't smell anything. I tug the sheet off, resting after each movement, and push it under the bed with my toes. The plastic mattress is clammy. It will do. I sit. "Telly on," I say, and it comes out as a croak, but the screen on the wall miraculously wakes, perhaps only to be polite. Some sitcom is showing with canned laughter. "Channel one," I say. The television power button flashes but the programme doesn't change. "Channel three," I say, and the picture switches to an almost identical sitcom except the characters are Black and American. Channel four is showing horses, those white ones from the Camargue galloping through water. I skip through the channels, Sky and even CNN, which has a static picture of a CNN building and scrolling text that reads, An update will follow shortly. I leave it on this. The blinds on the exterior window are still up and it's day outside. Is it morning or afternoon? All the toast and tea has been eaten and drunk although I don't recall finishing it, and the plate and the cup are still there. I pause on the side of the bed, gathering strength, then stand and go to the window, and when I look to the east the sun is rising over London. At the end of the alley I see movement and I tense for what might be coming, but as I watch, a fallow deer trots around the corner. It's young and long-legged, the spots on its orange coat easy to see. It stops below my window to look about and scratch behind its ear with a hind hoof and then something must scare it because, with a flick of its tail, it's off. Across the alleyway Sophia's blinds are up but her apartment is dark. She has written me a message: YES, I AM HEAR. I register the spelling mistake but I'm confused by what she's written until I read the last one I stuck up which I don't remember writing: ARE YOU THERE? I rest against the wall, legs weak and shaky, and turn back to my room to see the muddled duvet, a pillow under the bed with my dirty sheet, my water jug empty. A towel lies on the bathroom floor, my toothbrush beside it. No one has been in to clean, to take my pulse or my blood, to bring me food, to ask me my name and date of birth. Excerpted from The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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