Unlikely Animals

It was a source of entertainment at Maple Street Cemetery. Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best.

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.

Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment, and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab, but she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don’t spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma’s dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Someone should look for her, at least. Emma isn’t really trying to be a hero, but somehow she and her father bring about just the kind of miracle the town needs.

Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships, and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost.

These book club questions are from the publisher, Random House Books. A full book club kit can be found here.

Book club questions for Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

Discuss the structure of Unlikely Animals. What did you think of the chorus of ghostly narrators? Or the photographs and transcripts inserted throughout the novel? What did these devices add to the overall effect?

This novel is full of quirky, memorable characters: Emma Starling, Clive Starling, Ernest Harold Baynes, multiple ghosts, etc. Which character was your favorite, and why?

In the beginning, the chorus of ghosts says the narrative is “Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best.” Do you agree that funny and sad stories are the best ones? What emotions did you experience while reading the book?

Annie Hartnett didn’t set out to write a novel about the opioid crisis. During her research for the book, she realized it cast so large a shadow over the real town that inspired this fictional one that she would need to address it. What did you think about how Unlikely Animals portrays the opioid epidemic? Did reading this novel make you feel more compassionate towards people affected by it?

The story has a dash of magic to it, in the form of healing abilities, ghostly visions, and a graveyard Greek chorus. Why do you think Hartnett included these elements? Would you want magical shortcuts that could make life just a little bit easier?

Discuss the following quote: “Not knowing what happens next and the fear associated with the not-knowing, that uncertainty and anticipations is what makes use human.”

Unlikely Animals is filled with sharp, mordant humor. Which scenes or moments made you laugh? What does humor add to the overall effect of the story?

What did you think about Emma and Clive’s relationship? Discuss the family dynamics at play. How do you think their relationships would be different if Clive wasn’t sick?

“Anticipatory grief, it’s called, when you’re sad about something that hasn’t happened yet. Oh man, we thought at Maple Street, how we missed the excruciating pain of being alive.” Have you experienced anticipatory grief? What do you think the ghosts mean by “the excruciating pain of being alive”?

Discuss the role animals play in the book. Towards the novel’s end, Hartnett writes, “That’s why we like living with animals so much; they exhibit their joy so outwardly, remind us how to be better alive.” Do you agree?

Discuss the role the fifth graders play in the book. How does the fifthgrade class bring the Starling family together? How does Emma earn her stripes as a teacher? Discuss the final scene: is Clive a hero for saving the children?

Unlikely Animals is about familiar expectations, imperfect friendships, and confronting our own mortality. What did you take away from reading this novel?

In her author’s note at the back of the book, Hartnett talks about her research for Unlikely Animals. Were you surprised by the parts of this book inspired by real life? What did you think about Ernest Harold Baynes?

Unlikely Animals Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Unlikely Animals discussion questions