Justin Torres on Tour

September 7 San Francisco–Books Inc in the Castro September 12 New York–New School for Social Research September 13 New York–McNally Jackson September 14 Cambridge–Harvard Book Store September 15 Washington, DC–Politics & Prose September 17 Liverpool, NY–B&N September 18 Brooklyn–Brooklyn Book Festival September 19 Brooklyn–Greenlight Books September 20 Philadelphia–Giovanni’s Room	September 21 Iowa City–Prairie Lights September 23 Los Angeles–Vroman’s September 24 Tempe, AZ–Changing Hands September 26 Corte Madera–Book Passage September 29 San Francisco–Green Apple September 30 Sacramento–Stories on Stage October 1 San Francisco–West Coast Live October 4 Portland–Powell’s	October 12 Menlo Park–Kepler’s October 13 San Francisco–Alexander Book Company October 14, 15 Nashville–Southern Festival of the Books October 21 Salt Lake City–Utah Humanities Book Festival October 22, 23 Austin–Texas Book Festival October 25 Austin–BookPeople October 27 Bainbridge Island–Eagle Harbor Book Company October 29 Seattle–Elliott Bay Book Company November 19-20 Miami–Miami Book Fair

About We the Animals Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he's Puerto Rican, she's white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful. Written in magical language with unforgettable images, this is a stunning exploration of the viscerally charged landscape of growing up, how deeply we are formed by our earliest bonds, and how we are ultimately propelled at escape velocity toward our futures.

A Conversation with Justin

“The best book you’ll read this fall...WE THE ANIMALS, a slim novel—just 144 pages—about three brothers, half white, half Puerto Rican, scrambling their way through a dysfunctional childhood, is the kind of book that makes a career....Torres’s sentences are gymnastic, leaping and twirling, but never fancy for the sake of fancy, always justified by the ferocity and heartbreak and hunger and slap-happy euphoria of these three boys. It’s a coming-of-age novel set in upstate New York that rumbles with lyric dynamite. It’s a knock to the head that will leave your mouth agape. Torres is a savage new talent.”–Esquire

“First-time novelist Justin Torres unleashes WE THE ANIMALS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a gorgeous, howling coming-of-age novel that will devour your heart.”–Vanity Fair

“A novel so honest, poetic, and tough that it makes you reexamine what it means to love and to hurt. Written in the voice of the youngest of three boys, this partly autobiographical tale evokes the cacophony of a messy childhood—flying trash-bag kites, ransacking vegetable gardens, and smashing tomatoes until pulp runs down the kitchen walls. But despite the din the brothers create, the novel belongs to their mother, who alternates between gruff and matter-of-fact—‘loving big boys is different from loving little boys—you’ve got to meet tough with tough.’ In stark prose, Torres shows us how one family grapples with a dangerous and chaotic love for each other, as well as what it means to become a man.”–O, the Oprah Magazine

“The imagistic power of Justin Torres’ debut, WE THE ANIMALS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), exists in inverse proportion to its slim 128 pages. Just try shaking off this novel about three upstate New York brothers whose knockabout childhoods with their Puerto Rican “Paps” and white “Ma” are the narrative equivalent of feral kitties being swung overhead in a burlap bag.”–Elle Magazine

“WE THE ANIMALS is a dark jewel of a book. It’s heartbreaking. It’s beautiful. It resembles no other book I’ve read. We should all be grateful for Justin Torres, a brilliant, ferocious new voice.”–Michael Cunningham

More About Justin Torres JUSTIN TORRES grew up in upstate New York, where this novel is set. His work has appeared in Granta, Tin House, and Glimmer Train. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was the recipient of a Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists and is now a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He has worked as a farmhand, a dog walker, a creative writing teacher, and a bookseller. photo credit: Gregory Cowley