The Animal on the Rock

£12.95

“With a precise and visceral style, Daniela Tarazona presents the clinical course of a radical mutation – a change whose physiological symptoms emerge from a more intimate evolution. After the death of her mother, Irma decides to take a plane and hole up on a faraway beach. Through the course of her grief, the protagonist’s body, her instincts, and her perception, begin to experience a transformation as unexpected as it is natural. The skin over her joints become thick and scaly, her eyes take on a yellow gleam, and she spends more and more time bathing in the hot sun. In these pages, Tarazona manages to address the perennial literary theme of metamorphosis, without relying on simple fantasy or didactic symbolism. More than a fable or a supernatural diversion, The Animal on the Rock is a profoundly biological and introspective novel with universal resonances”–.

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SKU: 9781646053971 Category: Tag: Publisher/imprint : Deep Vellum Publishing
Page count : 100
Published on 23rd October, 2025

Description

 The sun gives me comfort. The temperature outside calibrates the temperature of my body, and I know I am immortal when I’m on a rock.

After Irma’s mother dies, she boards a plane to the coast. Soon she is consumed by strange dreams and irrational fears, and her body begins to transform in ways as unexpected as they are natural. The skin over her joints grows thick and scaly, her eyes take on a yellow gleam, and the border between reality and delirium becomes first elastic, then irrelevant. As the world around her tips out of balance-the weather turning volatile, strangers issuing cryptic warnings-she returns again and again to the rock where she undergoes metamorphosis: a series of radical mutations that enable her to survive.

Elemental and prophetic, intimate and universal, The Animal on the Rock bears witness to the terror and magnificence of being a child, a parent, a changing animal. A profoundly biological and introspective novel that lies somewhere between clinical record and fever dream.

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