Synopses & Reviews
Alan Johnson is a man ill-at-ease among people and only slightly more comfortable with animals. His story begins in upstate New York with his rescue of an injured Dalmatian who "came down out of the sky and survived the fall, showed me how gradually I have fallen how I never touch, never really talk to another person...I am hardly a person at all." The dog heals and is returned to its neglectful owner, but Alan Johnson steals it back and heads west in search of what it means to be human.
As he crosses the United States, he moves through landscapes full of animals half-tamed and people run wild: a fanatical taxidermist, a lonely woman raising tigers on her remote ranch, a tragic circus chimp named Rufus, contemporary polygamists, and the caretakers of boot camps for troubled youths. They are Carnival Wolves, manifestations of our attempts to tame what is dangerous and wild, distorted reflections of parts of ourselves.
After a tortuous journey through various states of depravity and of America Alan Johnson ends up in California having reached a reconciliation of instincts and having found a human being he can love. A gripping, hallucinatory read, Carnival Wolves is a provocation, a plea for identification that questions the humanity of its readers and confirms Peter Rock as a unique literary talent.
Review
"With considerable depth of characterization and an unerring sense of detail and atmosphere, Rock (This Is the Place) retains cohesiveness and compassion throughout his intricately structured story..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[D]isappointing....Rock does a superb job of conveying a sense of paranoia and uneasiness....Unfortunately, he does not give the reader any reason to care enough about Alan Johnson to take much interest in what happens to him or the people he meets." Library Journal
Review
"A well-written novel that reads like someone else's nightmare: horrible to witness but, in the end, not necessarily very meaningful....Nevertheless, Rock...is definitely an author worth watching." Booklist
Review
"[S]pooky, sharply written....[H]ere's fiction that's often exciting to read for all the old reasons: voice, vision, talent, guts." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Peter Rock grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the author of the novels The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, Carnival Wolves, and This Is the Place. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and recipient of a 2000 NEA Fellowship, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, and teaches at Reed College.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Peter Rock