In Fauna, Alissa York displays a veritable gift for research or an impressive range of experience as she creates believable characters from disparate walks of life and brings them together within a story encompassing both tragedy and redemption.
The story revolves around six central characters and the various animals that populate a wrecking yard and a ravine in the city of Toronto. The relationships that develop between the characters are often transparently prophetic and carefully crafted. The subjects are shaped into who they are by suitably bitter past experiences.
The animals encountered by the reader, both wild and tame, play a fundamental role (as the title would suggest). The wild ones are given a voice of their own, allowed expression, while the others are not. These others serve the story solely in the capacity of reflecting the inherent nature of the humans around them, suggesting that they are somehow diminished by domestication in comparison to their wild counterparts.
Though the characters were overtly petulant at times, they still retained enough authenticity to be believable, and when coupled with elegant prose that was effortless to read, you have a book that is at once enjoyable and interesting.
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