Yannick Murphy's fourth novel plants an urgency beneath the sweet tedium of New England country life and, in so doing, brings this tale of simple country veterinarian David Addison to the level of revelations about the risks involved in being alive. Murphy, whose previous works have impressed critics with a blend of sharpness and poignancy, here creates a lead character who is both fearful and heroic. The challenges David will face, and his responses, make this quirky novel something special.
David narrates the story though a ledger-like account of four seasons in his life, with headings such as "What the Wife Cooked for Dinner" and his veterinary activities: "Call," "Action," "Result." In those notes David reveals, along with horse lacerations and dog euthanasias, anxieties about money, his wife's and three children's daily joys, his fears for society's future and mysterious spaceship sightings. When his 12-year-old son is shot by an unseen hunter and lies in a coma for weeks, David becomes obsessed with ferreting out who, in the community of 600, fired the possibly fatal shot. Did someone in the spaceship see the crime? And who keeps calling and hanging up without speaking?
Murphy, herself married to a Vermont vet, paints a portrait of rural, animal-centric family life that is bucolic yet fragile and that resounds with undeniable truthfulness. There are animals that need to be put down, animals that survive what should kill them and humans asked to endure the unthinkable. David's trials and how he absorbs them show us both the helplessness and fortitude that beats within the mammalian chest. --Cherie Ann Parker, freelance journalist and book critic