Unveiling the Wild Within: How Amie Souza Reilly Redefines Our Connection to Animals in ‘Human/Animal’

Human/Animal, however, is a story of Connecticut suburbia that upends this trope. When Reilly, her husband, and her son move into the house they just bought, they learn that their neighbors are two brothers with a long-held grudge, who begin a string of bizarre, escalating violent behaviors meant to drive Reilly and her family out of the neighborhood all together.

Despite contacting the police on multiple occasions to no avail, the author is rightfully fearful and vulnerable, not to mention gaslit and ultimately powerless to stop them. Throughout her collection of essays, Reilly braids vignettes about this time in her life with musings on the boundaries of suburban civility, punctuated by animal verb etymologies with violent implications.

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