Of use to me only for the first section, a collection of stories about 'murderous' animals, including a rat, camel, elephant, dog, cat, and perhaps a tapeworm of some sort. Oddly, the animals seem to share her prejudices, all which are multiple and at best embarrassing: against Italians, 'natives,' and so forth.

Otherwise, I just don't get the fascination w/ her. If John Cheever--or Kingsley Amis-had a stupider younger sibling who thought a fascination w/ violence and mere cleverness substituted for insight, this is what would be produced. Better fictional explorations of evil (or demonic evil, i.e., evil w/out a goal) can be found in Pär Lagerkvist's The Dwarf, and a better exploration of obsession and misanthropy can be found in Evan S. Connell's Diary of a Rapist. ( )