Twenty years ago, three children vanished from their beds in a quiet suburb. One morning, their families wake to find their sons and daughter have returned, grown and naked and deeply changed.

Claiming to have found the Garden of Eden, they reveal the bizarre customs of a place that they reverently call “the woods. ” Devotees there aspire to an animalistic, ape-like state.

The rules for living in the woods: No Speech. No Clothes.

No Possessions. The commandments are two: Do no harm.

Thou shalt not kill. It is these commandments that their parents discover are as crucial for survival in civilization as in the wilderness.

. .

For humans, too, are beasts. Praise forAnimalia:"Pam Jones's Animalia is like a metaphysical Harry and the Hendersons if it had been directed by Michael Haneke.

In this map to Eden, Jones writes in simple sentences that add up to pack a big punch. Animalia is a beautiful, wholly original meditation on what it means to be the awful animal that is Human.

"— Jesi Bender, author of Kinderkrankenhaus and The Book of the Last Word"A wonderfully strange and fascinating observation on family and spirituality, on what makes us human and what makes us wild. "— Tomas Moniz, author of All Friends Are Necessary and Big Familia"With haunting and beautiful prose, Pam Jones' Animalia weaves a lyrical, Kafkaesque tale of three long-missing children who return home as adults, claiming to have found Eden.

Jones explores the primal nature of humanity and our longing to return to innocence that can never truly be achieved. A spellbinding exploration of the philosophy of nature and the price of reaching for utopia.

"— Eric Z. Weintraub, author of South of Sepharad"Animalia by Pam Jones is a novel completely gorgeous in its primordial, philosophical energies.

In this best of all possible Edens, which unflinchingly ropes in the worst of all possible impulses, Jones’s tense, sorcerous narrative is a lamp unto our feet, a light neon-red and warning. "— Vincent James, author of Acacia, a Book of Wonders.