Conversations with Extinct Animals

An experimental narrative by eco-fiction author and poet Patrick Lawler evolves out of the interactions between twenty-four extinct animals and those characters who struggle for significance in the face of their own extinction Patrick Lawler's second novel, Conversations with Extinct Animal, is a dialogue between psychology and ecology-between poetry and story. A suicide note masquerading as a love letter, the novel transcends genres and keeps kaleidoscopically shifting: sometimes it is an elegy, and sometimes it is a therapy session-but always these are the field notes for the end of the world. As a collection of characters associated with The Facility come to terms with an individual's death, they must confront their own losses amid the colossal absence of the twenty-four extinct animals. All the characters float between various inexplicable, mystifying &quote,syndromes&quote, that call into question their identities and, ultimately, call into question the elements of story itself. &quote,Looking at pictures of the Extinct Animals, I can't help but wonder if it is too late to save the world-especially since there are so many different worlds,&quote, observes the narrator of the novel in his efforts to save the unsavable.