Book review: ‘Enter the Aardvark,’ by Jessica Anthony
- 29 Apr 2020
When we meet Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson, the protagonist of Jessica Anthony’s “Enter the Aardvark,” he is in the middle of a tricky re-election campaign in his Virginia district.
He does not want to lose to a female opponent, especially not a woman named Nancy Beavers.
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Wilson is rich and handsome — and preposterous and shallow.
He is a Ronald Reagan groupie. He buys the same cowboy shirts the President used to wear, and even purchases a canary-yellow velvet sofa on which the former film star used to recline.
Wilson’s advisors are conscious that this effete image may not play well with the voters. The Republican congressman is told he needs to “Find A Wife” to help his political career.
The secrets about his private life are blown wide open when FedEx delivers an ancient stuffed aardvark, setting in chain a series of bizarre incidents.
The story of how his career descends into scandal and farce is told with terrific wit, as Anthony comically disembowels the politician and then stuffs him again for good measure.
The inventive parallel plot is about the Englishman who reconstructed the strange African animal more around 170 years before it reaches Wilson.
That taxidermist, Titus Hamilton, is also a man of secrets. The potent tale of his hidden love, and how his life comes apart at the seams in Victorian England, foreshadows the public and private hypocrisy that will bring down a public figure in the “oily machine” of modern politics.
To tell any more of the plot would spoil this twisty, meditative book, which is part satire, part ghostly mystery.
Also, if you are anything like me, you will end up loving the actual aardvark (it’s not his fault he’s a Nazi), and relish the world of taxidermy that Anthony brings to life.
“Enter the Aardvark” sizzles with uproarious fun, from its snout to the sting in its tale.
