At the beginning of Emmeline Atwood’s A Real Animal (Catapult, July), protagonist Lucy wakes up in her college dorm room to find herself transformed into a leopard. It is unclear to Lucy whether she’s really a leopard or just feels like one, but the opening scene sets the mood for this intense, dreamlike coming-of-age story about a young woman who, scarred by a sexual assault, seeks a transcendent and untamed life.
Atwood explains that when someone like Lucy is “in a traumatized body, you want to do anything to get out of it and inhabit any other body, especially one more connected to instinct and response.” As Lucy endures an abusive and sexually permissive relationship in Indianapolis, discovers the sublime nature of deep-sea scuba diving in Hawaii, and meets her potential soulmate in Austin, she negotiates her competing desires for freedom and rootedness. “I do believe in that Emersonian notion that deep down, we’re all capable of anything,” Atwood says, adding that when entering early adulthood, “you’re unshackled and confronting this terrifying landscape of choices.”
Lucy remains a fascinating if opaque figure, possessing an element of wildness that never allows her to ease comfortably into human relations. She finds the most peace deep underwater, an environment Atwood is familiar with, having worked as a scuba instructor in Thailand after graduating from Harvard. “I wanted to be underwater all the time,” she remembers, describing a moment of serenity she experienced below the surface. “I was like, Oh, my body can change into anything, and because of that, I’m going to be okay.”
Atwood grew up in Massachusetts and currently resides in Austin, where she works for a startup that helps farmers and ranchers invest in sustainable practices. Despite being occupied with a heavy workload, planning her upcoming wedding, and writing, she is considering giving scuba lessons again, at an inland dive shop. Like her heroine, she finds it hard to resist the call of the wild.
