Wild Animus: A Novel (Paperback)

by Rich Shapero (Author) "A canister hit the asphalt thirty feet from Sam Altman, and white smoke coiled from its top..." (more)
Key Phrases: cloven shoes, serac field, sulphur eyes, Wasilla Bill, Wild Animus, Burt Conklin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Shapero unwisely uses the prologue of his debut novel to divulge the ending, so the remaining 300 pages do little more than track one man's tedious journey toward acid-induced madness. Drug dealer Sam Altman, an unhappy and lonely student at the University of California–Berkeley in the late 1960s, meets and falls in love with equally unhappy and lonely Lindy at an antiwar protest. Attempting to evade arrest for drug dealing, the couple flee to Washington State, where Sam's chronic use of LSD leads him to cut himself off from his friends, change his name to Ransom and yearn to become "a fur-covered shaman, a wild ram-man, chanting the liturgy of surrender." The pair end up in Alaska, where she waitresses to support him while he writes a novel, masquerades as a mountain ram and imagines he's being chased by a rout of wolves. Though Ransom's hallucinations worsen by the day, Lindy and his few remaining friends are too intimidated by his behavior and unhappy themselves to intervene, leaving him to his tragic and inevitable end (which, of course, has already been divulged). Shapero does have a talent for vivid imagery, but this is still just a sad tale of a man whose drug addiction drives him and everyone around him crazy.
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Review
"A powerful and complex book." -- Library Journal, September 1, 2004

"Reading WILD ANIMUS is like climbing, skiing, or intense adventuring. It puts you in the 'time is now' state." -- Mike Libecki, World-Class Mountain Climber/Contributing Writer, Climbing Magazine

Fans who want something different . . . will take immense pelasure with the well-written, deep WILD ANUIMUS. -- www.blether.com by Harriet Klausner #1 Ranked Amazon Reviewer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 315 pages
• Publisher: Too Far Books; first printing edition (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971880107
• ISBN-13: 978-0971880108
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (116 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,041,759 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I Have Some Wild Animosity for this Book, June 10, 2004

By	Patrick Burnett "penngos" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is easily one of the worst books I have ever read. It's difficult to believe that a publisher can have read this manuscript and thought it was publishable. Why, wait a minute! The publishing house, Too Far, was founded by this book's author, Richard Shapero! Well, that explains the lack of serious editing or promotion.

"Wild Animus" is a fantasy about the 60's. By "fantasy", I mean that it is a story written by someone who knows nothing about the 60's and made things up as he went along. The main characters, Sam and Lindy, are fictional hippies who speak in stilted diatribes about enlightenment, empowerment and oppression. All written by an author who apparently has never been enlightened, empowered or oppressed.

The dialog throughout reads like someone who has never heard a conversation, and has only read bad poetry in translation. The actions are those of people who have no sense.

I canot, cannot believe anyone would consider this book publishable, let alone start his own company with the intention of publishing it. Please do not read this book.

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Insert Sheep Joke Here (and use a condom), May 28, 2004

By	J. COMER (Hesperia CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is just awful. I know the author travels in the Alaska wilderness, etc, but he can't write worth a damn.
Animus means "mind" or "hostility". It does not mean what this clown thinks it means.
This is about a man who goes crazy and thinks he's a wild mountain sheep. His girlfriend supports him by waiting tables while he hikes around Mount Wrangell, working up the nerve to throw himself in and hallucinating that he is a sheep, and that his girlfriend is a pack of wolves who chase him, and that inside the (volcanic) mountain there is a god who will somehow save everyone by releasing their emotions.
None of the characters seem real. The prose is turgid and wordy, adejective laden and irksome. How many times do I need to be told about a meadow full of Alaska wildflowers? And why would I CARE about this idiot who mutilates himself and dances around on a mountain. In addition, the 1960s "setting" is totally unconvincing. This maniac belongs in the men's movement, "shaman" and "power animal" craze of the 1990s. No one in the 60s talked or acted like that. The author knows nothing about LSD, which is the excuse for most of the sheep segments of the novel (sorry, can't think of something else to call them.)
I will never read anything by this guy again. No wonder the book was free. Who would pay for this trash?

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the paper it's printed on, April 24, 2004

By A Customer

This novel is filled with flowery language polluted with pseudo-psychobabble and redundant geological metaphors. It is a quasi-fictional delusion of grandeur dealing with a drug-dependent, over-educated schizophrenic who comes from a dysfunctional home. After being tear-gassed at a college riot, he finds the younger, less schizophrenic version of himself. The two flee to the Northwest, where their pathetic plight to achieve a primal enlightenment ends in a leap of false-faith. A perfect example of a bad book.