Enter the Aardvark

By: Jessica Anthony

Narrated by: Matt Amendt

A young congressman discovers a mysterious stuffed aardvark on his doorstep and sets out on a journey to find out what it means in this "weird, wonderful" novel about the secrets we keep from ourselves and their history-shaping consequences (Esquire).

It's early one morning on a hot day in August, and millennial congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R), planning his first reelection campaign and in deep denial about his sexuality, receives a mysterious, over-sized FedEx delivery on his front stoop. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark.

This outrageous, edge-of-your-seat novel hurtles between contemporary Washington, D.C., where Wilson tries to get rid of the unsightly beast before it destroys his career, and Victorian England--where we meet Titus Downing, the taxidermist who stuffed the aardvark, and Richard Ostlet, the naturalist who hunted her. Our present world, we begin to see, has been shaped in profound and disturbing ways by the secret that binds these men.

At once a ghost story, a love story, and a stunningly prescient political satire, Enter the Aardvark confronts the consequences of repressed male love meeting oppressive male power, and is a searing condemnation of our current American blindness. It is also that rarest of creatures: a work of art so utterly original and masterfully built that it seems to have spring fully formed from its visionary maker's head.

Critic reviews

"Inventive and darkly funny...as Anthony connects characters from today with those from 19th-century England, she offers an original and unsettling lens through which to view male power as it has evolved over time."—TIME

"Like A. S. Byatt with a demented sense of humor...profound and slapsticky, hilarious and depressing at once, Enter the Aardvark is brutally suited to our moment of absurd political theater...Anthony's approach to Rep. Wilson falls somewhere between Nabokov's Pnin and Veep...With her huge taxidermy needle, Anthony stitches us into the breast of our nemesis. She wants to see what insights we gain from putting on their skin...It's a thrilling ride...I'd buy another ticket."—LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Weird, wonderful, and very much of the moment, Enter the Aardvark is a landmark political novel of the Trump era...With heart and humor, Anthony expertly skewers our current political climate."—ESQUIRE

"If you've been wondering, as I have, where the spirit of Nathanael West might be in these berserk and awful times, enter Jessica Anthony. With her highly inventive, ever attentive, and morally serious (as all great comedy must be) Enter the Aardvark, she estranges all over again our deplorable political moment, and thereby helps make it bearable."—JOSHUA FERRIS, author of The Dinner Party andThen We Came to the End

"[Enter the Aardvark] holds up a funhouse mirror to our own political media in the age of spin...reminiscent of Joyce's Dubliners and the later works of T. S. Eliot, the prose quickly transitions into something more modern, but equally ambitious...The book raises some standard commentary about our relationship to politics and the media...but Anthony's reflection of ourselves goes deeper. This is a world that serves, in some ways, as a salve to readers disgruntled by the last four years."—LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

"Enter the Aardvark is one wild ride: a condemnation, a haunting, a song of love, a madcap political thriller-and it is absolutely unputdownable. I have long been a massive fan of Jessica Anthony's writing and this novel cements her as one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page. Welcome, readers, to her world."—LAURA VAN DEN BERG, author of The Third Hotel

"It's a long time since I have enjoyed a novel so much. Fresh, witty and smart, it also has a heart. What more could you want? And who would have thought that you could become emotionally attached to a stuffed aardvark?"—KATE ATKINSON, author of Big Sky and LifeAfter Life

"This book is batshit insane and I love it. What do a closeted gay Republican congressman who's obsessed with Ronald Reagan have in common with a taxidermist in 19th-century England? Answer: an aardvark. And also much more, but I'll let you discover the rest for yourself."— LIT-HUB

Almost

Relentlessly whimsical, but not quite funny. Passably clever, but mostly pretentious. Interesting, but ultimately shallow.

So bizarre. So good.

This is so worth working through the first half hour of being perplexed. It's written in a unique style, and read brilliantly by the narrator. It's funny. And weird. And, sadly: relevant as hell. I will probably listen to this again.

This is so weird, I love it.

This was such an odd and hilarious read. The aardvark facts were on point. The narration was great.

Eh

Less interesting American Psycho with ghosts and African mammals and old British corpses named Alex.

Who thinks of this stuff?

What a strange book. I like when authors blow my mind. I like new and clever things. Not a comedy but very funny. Taxidermy in the time of Darwin, a stuffed aardvark stolen from Namibia with compelling baby blue eyes - purchased by Heinrich Himler for his son then, present day, a closeted congressman with an obsession with Ronald Reagan. So hard to describe...try it. You are going to love it. I would love to have a friend who thinks like the author.