THE COUNCIL OF ANIMALS
NICK MCDONELL
� 2021 Henry Holt
$25.99 / $34.99 Canada
208 pages

The abandoned yacht was perhaps not the best place to call a meeting, but that's where everyone was told to gather. The dog arrived first, followed by the horse and the bear. The cat arrived just before the crow, and the baboon called them all to order.

Nobody denied the argument the crow put forth: Humans caused The Calamity, which destroyed nearly everything, including the humans — all but maybe a dozen or so. And now the animals needed to decide if they should eat the humans that are left.

Aye or nay?

Now, you might be surprised that there wasn't more confusion at the meeting. Making a point, the baboon threw a stick for dog to fetch. The horse talked nonstop about sugar cubes. When the representative for the mice arrived, the cat pounced. It was chaotic, but remember that animals were always able to communicate among themselves by speaking grak, and so their behavior, however shaky this time, was natural.

Almost immediately, the dog and the bear said "no" to killing the humans. Horse said she loved her jockey but her vote was still "yes," probably because the baboon found some sugar inside the abandoned yacht. The cat said "no," the crow said "kill," and when the mythical creature arrived with its "yes" vote, it appeared that the decision was made.

But before the proceedings could move any further, the dog, the bear, and the cat escaped to forestall the deaths of the humans. They needed time to think, and the cat's cave was the perfect place to do it...

Though this novel is a little hard to describe, let's try: if Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm hatched a clutch of large reptile eggs underground beneath a theme park, the result would be The Council of Animals by Nick McDonell.

That's not to say that this book is weird. It's just not like anything you'd expect in one about animals taking over, and aspects of it — sea dragons and giant lizards, or maybe the blatant, comic-like anthropomorphism that snags the story toward the end — feel jarring enough to almost ruin things sometimes. And yet, because McDonnell's story is narrated by a "historian" who's looking back at what happened decades after The Calamity, there are laughs here and a quasi-parable that some readers might appreciate.

Some, but not all, because, well, okay, this book is a little more than a little different — and you'll need extra suspension of disbelief with it. If you can manage that and you like allegories, The Council of Animals might be for you.