Harare Review of Books

322 pp. June 10, 2025, Loyola College/Apprentice House. Fiction/absurdist humour.

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What if … someone showed up on your doorstep (in the town of Hmm) to tell you your hermit uncle had died (in an explosion) and left you a bunch of stuff? Bunch being, in this case: “…a rusty bicycle and a busted set of drums. … Oh, and some kind of mixed animal.” What’s a mixed animal? you may well ask. I have just slightly more insight than you, having read the book. Its narrator lives in Hmm with his sister who’s received the seemingly more useful inheritance from that hermit uncle: namely, lots of money. She’s going to use it to fund her campaign for mayor of Hmm (her hook being that she helps people by “expanding their opportunity for happiness by promising them everything,” although she secretly thinks “the only problem with democracy is the election”).

Forest cabin-dwelling Hermit Uncle, though, turns out to have been some kind of mad genius, although that was never apparent to his nephew. These were the nephew’s observations on a visit to him in Unconscious Forest:
“I couldn’t see no radio nor TV nor record player. The only entertainment in town was them crows up there cursing and yelping and scratching that tin roof like the devil’s sock hop. The sole reading material was a pamplet called “Ethics and Esthetics of Biotechnology At Home”; a handmade cardboard sign nailed to the wall that said: “If you reeding this sine you wasteing my time”; and a big white Bible that was so old and read-worn and coming apart I thought it was a pile of melting snow on the table.”

Also, “on top of that, Unc never offered us the first snack or soda pop,” so he was a bit mean. And Unc’s eyes (before he died) “had the combination of Peter Lorre, Ulysses S. Grant, and a snapping turtle in them.”

I fell in love with this novel just about immediately. It’s the odd world Martin’s built for these characters, the inanity, and a lot about the narrator (now one of my favourites in literature) including his dialect and sheer eloquence:

“Mom was the Hmm librarian and somewhat of a thief, so our childhood was ripe with books in every nook and cranny. Dad was unliterate and liked to hear Shane and me read out loud because it put him to sleep, so we developed into deeply mental children.”

Richard Martin’s previous book is Oranges for Magellan. While his choice of subject is equally quirky in this novel and his humour just as wry and delightful, Mixed Animals is a, well, different, animal altogether. There’s mystery, adventure, the narrator’s rough life wisdom, and a love story too. I love that these two novels, while in the same not-entirely-classifiable genre, show how much range Martin is able to bring to his work in style and subject matter.

Highly recommended; one of my top reads of the year. I enjoyed Oranges for Magellan, and Martin’s added himself to my list of favourite writers with this one. Read if you like your humour absurdist (like in Confederacy of Dunces) and because it’s diverting (heaven knows we all need all the diversions we can get).

Oh, so I don’t leave you hanging, here’s more about that animal:

“Slowly we lain our eyes upon the creature. It stood in the corner, blazing bad intentions our way. Size-wise, it was near to a long large turkey, a smaller wart hog, or about one and two-thirds emperor penguin. Simply standing there it disarranged your entire deductive facility.”

Thank you very much to Richard Martin for early access to a DRC.

links:

• Oranges for Magellan x Richard Martin
• An interview with Richard Martin, author of Oranges for Magellan
• Affiliate link: Support independent bookshops and my writing by ordering it from Bookshop here. Paperback | Hardcover