Animal

The narrator, Joan, begins her story, addressed to an unnamed “you,” with the event that propelled her from her life in New York City. While having dinner with a married man she loves, her boss and obsessive long-term lover, another married man named Vic, enters the restaurant and shoots himself in the nose. Joan reflects on her self-described “depraved” nature, shaped by a history of complex relationships with men. Her affair with Vic began years earlier and involved lavish trips funded by him, though his obsession grew suffocating, especially when she became involved with a younger man named Jack. Vic’s jealousy and obsession reached a breaking point due to Joan’s intense infatuation with a married man she calls “Big Sky.”

Following Vic’s public suicide, Joan feels utterly alone and decides to leave New York. She resolves to find Alice, a woman her late aunt Gosia once revealed is her half-sister. Joan had previously seen Alice, a Los Angeles-based fitness expert, on a magazine cover. She packs her belongings, including the ashes of her mother and father, into her car and drives to California. On her way into Topanga Canyon, she steals a vulgar, frog-themed vase from a market and places her father’s ashes inside.

Joan arrives at her new rental, a strange adobe house on a communal property. She meets her neighbors, Kevin, a quiet former rap star who lives below her, and River, a young man who lives in a yurt on the property. Her landlord is an elderly man named Leonard, or Lenny, who lives in a nearby tiny home. That night, awakened by coyotes, Joan turns on an air-conditioning unit she was told did not exist. The next morning, Lenny confronts her angrily, claiming the unit is dangerous and forbidden, though Joan intuits his real concern is the shared electricity bill.

While settling in, Joan begins to investigate Alice’s life. At a local bar called Froggy’s, she meets River, who warns her that Lenny, whose wife Lenore recently died, is “needy.” A mutual attraction develops between Joan and River. Joan visits the yoga studio where Alice works but is so intimidated by Alice’s beauty that she leaves before class begins. She gets a job at the health food café next to the studio and, before her first day, witnesses a fatal car crash that kills a mother and her infant. Later, Joan begins to bond with Lenny, who tells her about his late wife, Lenore.

Alice eventually comes into the café, and she and Joan form an immediate, intense friendship. Joan begins to confide in Alice, recounting the story of her affair with Big Sky, from their first meeting and instant chemistry to a later, humiliating sexual encounter in her apartment. Joan also tells Alice about her complicated, years-long affair with Vic. Their burgeoning friendship is interrupted by a phone call from Mary, Vic’s widow. Mary reveals that their son, Robbie, who had Down syndrome, recently drowned. She then warns Joan that her seventeen-year-old daughter, Eleanor, hates Joan, wants to kill her, and may be on her way to Los Angeles.

Joan’s life in the canyon becomes more complicated. Lenny enters her house uninvited during a dissociative episode, mistaking her for his dead wife, Lenore. After he recovers, Joan cooks for him, and he reveals he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Joan also discovers he keeps a valuable Patek Philippe watch in a hidden safe. Her new friendship with Alice is strained when she repeatedly sees Alice visiting River’s yurt and realizes they are in a sexual relationship. Feeling betrayed, Joan sleeps with River.

Through a series of flashbacks, Joan’s traumatic childhood is revealed. At age ten, while on vacation in the Poconos, her father, a doctor, receives a call that his mother has been raped and leaves for New Jersey. The next day, Joan’s parents drop her at a pool, where she meets an older man named Wilt. He gives her an alcoholic drink and lures her to his deceased parents’ home, where he sexually assaults her. That night, her parents are tense and silent. In the middle of the night, Joan is awakened by music and finds her father stabbed to death in bed and her mother dying in the bathtub from slit wrists. Her mother dies in her arms. Joan’s aunt Gosia arrives and explains the truth: her father was having an affair with a woman named Francesca, Alice’s mother, and was on his way to see her and their child, Alice, with the intention of leaving his family. Upon learning this, Joan’s mother, Pia, killed him and then herself.

Back in the present, Eleanor arrives at Joan’s house and threatens her with a gun. To save herself, Joan lies, claiming she is pregnant with Vic’s child. They go to a supermarket for a pregnancy test, which comes back positive. Joan is, in fact, pregnant from a coercive sexual encounter she calls a “half a rape” with a man named John Ford during her cross-country drive. Believing the baby is a reincarnation of her brother Robbie, Eleanor moves in with Joan to monitor the pregnancy.

Alice, disturbed by Eleanor’s constant presence, distances herself from Joan. In an act of revenge, Joan sleeps with River again. River confesses to Alice, who is devastated. Alice announces she is going on a yoga retreat in Montana, near where Big Sky lives, effectively ending her friendship with Joan. Meanwhile, Lenny makes a final, horrifying confession. He tells Joan that years ago, his wife Lenore was raped by a musician, Dean Johnson, at a swingers' club called Sandstone and became pregnant. Consumed by jealousy over his own infertility, Lenny secretly induced Lenore’s miscarriage with cohosh, killing the fetus.

Shortly after, Joan begins to hemorrhage and suffers a miscarriage. She holds the perfectly formed male fetus in her hand as it dies. In the immediate aftermath, she sees coyotes attacking River’s dog, Kurt. In a primal impulse, she throws the fetus at the coyotes, creating a distraction that allows the dog to escape. Lenny finds her covered in blood. Enraged by his story, Joan manipulates him into another "Lenore" episode, lures him to her bedroom, and strangles him to death, stealing his valuable watch. She stages the scene to look like an accidental fall down the spiral staircase. The police accept her story about his death.

Joan’s life begins anew. She sells Lenny’s watch for a fortune, sends Eleanor home to her mother, and moves into an expensive house in the Palisades. She returns to the canyon one last time to retrieve a couch and has a final sexual encounter with River, which seemingly results in a second pregnancy. Months later, living in isolation, she goes into premature labor and calls Alice for help. On the way to the hospital, Joan finally tells Alice that they are half-sisters, confirming the truth about their parents' deaths. They reconcile. At the hospital, Joan gives birth to a premature but living baby girl. The narrative concludes by revealing that the “you” Joan has been addressing throughout the story is this newborn daughter, for whom she feels a profound and pure love for the first time.