Name All the Animals: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Alison Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2004

Recounts the author's teenage experience of losing her brother in a car accident, a loss after which she managed her grief by engaging in self-destructive behaviors until her forbidden love for another girl helped her to define herself beyond her brother's death.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alison Smith’s close-knit Catholic family is the very picture of contentment--right up until the day her 18-year-old brother is killed in a car accident. In Name All the Animals, Smith walks readers through the breakdown and breakthroughs of her family in the days and years that follow.

Cleanly written and only occasionally maudlin, this memoir reads like a gritty coming of age novel. Included are all of the pieces one would expect in a book that starts with a death--bereft parents, good samaritan neighbors, even a somewhat rote post-funeral scene back at the house--but Smith manages to throw in a few unexpected curveballs. A sweetly scandalous lesbian experience, a pair of skinny-dipping nuns, and a suspiciously undetected bout of anorexia come together with a quiet but ever-present insurance investigation to create a truly original story.

Written in the same vein as The Lovely Bones or The Dogs of Babel, Smith’s story manages to convey the beauty that can be found in coming to terms with grief. Ultimately triumphant, this is a great read for anyone searching for meaning after the loss of a loved one. --Vicky Griffith

From Publishers Weekly

In her first book, Smith, an alumna of the Yaddo and MacDowell writers' colonies, confidently weaves together aspects of a traditional coming-of-age memoir with a story of unimaginable loss. In lucid, controlled prose, she meticulously reconstructs her family's journey through the three years following her 18-year-old brother Roy's death in a car accident, just weeks before he was to start college, in 1984. Despite their overwhelming grief, Smith's devout Catholic parents' faith does not waver, but the 15-year-old Smith grapples with her beliefs. "I thought perhaps it was my fault that Roy had left us," she writes. "I thought I was being punished for some unknown sin." A student at a Rochester, N.Y., Catholic high school, Smith can't express her doubts, nor can she reveal her romantic feelings for one of her schoolmates, a less sheltered girl who introduces her to Colette and van Gogh. And even though Smith becomes exceedingly thin, her mother and father fail to notice she's anorexic. Name All the Animals (the title refers to Adam naming the animals in the Garden of Eden) includes many vivid images, although some of the language can seem too pretty and composed. The book closes with the third anniversary of Roy's death. "If I lived past the summer of my eighteenth year," Smith resolves, "I would have to face that Roy died and that I the little sister, the tagalong... would surpass him." It's a brave ending to an impressive debut.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (January 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743255224
• ISBN-13: 978-0743255226
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,079,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Attention fiction readers, you will LOVE this!!, February 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Name All the Animals: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This is a true story, which is why it's described as a memoir. But it could just as easily have been published as a novel. It has all the character development, suspense, narrative arc, and beautiful writing of the best literary fiction. So don't dismiss it if you're not a big memoir fan. It should appeal to fiction and nonfiction readers equally.
But regardless of how it's categorized, I could NOT put this book down. I read it every second I could and couldn't bear to be away from it when I was at work. The grief made my heart break, but the love story, and Alison's success in figuring out who she is, just made my heart swell. It's such a gorgeous, moving portrait of a family, both in grief and in love. It's told through the 15-year-old eyes of the author, and she just GETS adolescence. I was sent spiralling back to my own memories of high school, and the unique, electric, unforgettable experience of first love. It's one of those unforgettable books that only come along every so often. I highly recommend it to readers everywhere.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling account of a family's loss, April 27, 2004

By 

Beth Cholette "doctor_beth" (Upstate NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Name All the Animals: A Memoir (Hardcover)

First time author Allison Smith has written an engrossing memoir that reads like a coming-of-age novel, as she describes childhood pastimes, family vacations, struggles in school, her first kiss, etc. However, superimposed over all of these activities and events is the shadow of her older brother's sudden death when she was 15 years old. Smith shares her own response to the loss of Roy, a brother with whom she was so close that they shared a common nickname, Alroy. At the same time, Smith skillfully weaves in stories of her family's past, an effective literary tool which serves to illuminate the different reactions of each family member to Roy's death. The narrative does not always relate to Roy directly, but although Smith devotes much of her book to her experiences in school, friendship, and love, the specter of Roy is always present.

Smith has done a masterful job of characterizing the many different emotions which compromise grief; her book is not just about sadness but about anger, confusion, numbness, guilt, embarrassment, and more. The teenaged Allison is a poignant figure who can't help but to ignite compassion, not only in those around her but also in the present-day reader. My one disappointment about this book is that the reader is told little about Allison's future. Although Smith includes an epilogue which takes place 13 years after Roy's death, these final pages add little to Allison's story, leaving the reader to wonder about her health, her relationships, and her life in general. Overall, however, this book is a remarkable acheivement for Smith, who clearly has the makings of a novelist.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, January 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Name All the Animals: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Like an earlier reviewer, I too read this book in one sitting. Unlike that reviewer, I found the writing remarkable. Readers will want to keep picking it up, not so much because the book is "gripping", but because it is inviting - you will just want to spend more time with her.

The book is a moving memoir that reads like a novel. Ms. Smith has seamlessly woven together pieces of her story in a manner reminiscent of a new friend describing her family to you over a period of time - memories that may seem disjointed and out of focus at first begin to take shape until, in the end, the reader realizes a relationship has been formed.

Yes, religion is the backbone of this young girl's family but readers are not beaten over the head with it, it simply is. "Hot button" issues are treated with the subtlety of adolesence and thankfully, never labeled. They too are just part of growing up. I don't think this book was ever meant to address how to deal with the painful aftermath of the death of a sibling. Rather it is a tribute to childhood and growing up in spite of it all.

Recommendation? Read it and decide for yourself!