Long before the question of “man versus bear” began to tear up TikTok, people have contemplated what it’s like to be with a beast. The earliest art we know of, cave paintings and rock carvings, shows humans interacting with wild animals. Over the tens of thousands of years since making those early marks, people have domesticated wolves, learned how to keep livestock, and forged bonds with countless beings furred, feathered, and scaled. Oh, yeah, and started asking the tough questions on TikTok, too. It’s been a great run.
Considering this long legacy, it comes as no surprise that some of our most exciting, absorbing, and resonant stories are about the human-creature relationship. Through stories, we both tell each other what’s real and imagine what might be possible. And when we put a woman at our story’s center—as is the case in my new novel, Bear—we can explore a particularly compelling point of view on each.
In the books below, the women who meet wild creatures, both animal and mythical, are often trapped in their own lives. Domestic drudgery rules. They’re homemakers, caretakers, wives and mothers and daughters and sisters who are struggling against the limitations imposed on them. When they meet a beast, though, they are able to get to a previously inaccessible wildness. They break away from human rules, a strictly human world, and into something other—something extraordinary, something free. The beast outside provokes the transformation within. This is a reading list made to communicate how we might experience the same ourselves.
Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms From Around the World edited by Maria Tatar
If you’ve only seen the Disney movie, you haven’t yet heard the whole of Beauty and the Beast. In this collection, fairy-tale scholar Maria Tatar gathers humanity’s many stories about those who wed animals. She writes of those animal spouses: “They stand in for everything we disavow in ourselves—ferocity, bestiality, and untamed urges. Because our relationship to them is saturated with mysterious desires and projected fantasies, our stories about them enable us to probe what remains uncivilized, unruly, and undomesticated in us.” Saturated with mysterious desires? Sounds like the ideal subject to me.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
This modern classic collects Carter’s retold fairy tales, each one more unsettling than the last. Her portrayals of womanhood are provocative, challenging, and she writes men and monsters in such a way that the two blend together. In stories including “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon,” “The Tiger’s Bride,” and “The Company of Wolves,” Carter looks without flinching—has Angela Carter ever flinched?—at the terrors and thrills of an imagined relationship with a beast. It’s an unforgettable read.
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
Let’s leave the fairy-tale world behind for a moment to look at this decidedly 20th-century novella, full of cake mix and radio commercials, about a housewife who falls for an amphibian humanoid named Larry. I know, I know, you’ve heard that same plot a million times before, but this one, you really should pick up. No, seriously, this novel is surprising, moving, and deeply original. (If its subject rings any bells, please know that it was published a quarter century before The Shape of Water won the Oscar for Best Picture.) And it’s gorgeously written, so specific, so full. Indulge me in a name drop: I first read this after New York Times bestselling author Jessamine Chan recommended it as a “perfect book.” She was right.
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
Craving more woman-meets-sea-creature fiction? Look no further! The Pisces, about a grad student’s affair with a merman, is a sex-obsessed, thrilling, and profoundly weird read. It beautifully captures a particular kind of nihilism, where nothing is going your way and you’ve already decided that nothing ever will. Does that sound fun? Because it is. It’s fun, and funny, and shocking, and fantastic.
Sea Change by Gina Chung
Sticking with the sea but scaling back the sex, this tender, gorgeous debut novel is about a grieving young woman’s bond with a giant Pacific octopus. The octopus, Dolores, is the main character’s last link to her lost father—but their connection is threatened when Dolores is threatened with a sale to a private aquarium. In interviews, Chung has said, “This is a story about love, loss, and cephalopods; things that everyone can relate to.” How true! So wrap your tentacles around this one and enjoy.
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
This poetic and wonderfully odd story is about a woman who gives birth to an owl. Everyone around the main character, Tiny, is shocked, even repulsed, but Tiny adores her dear, bizarre little bird. And thanks to the strength of the writing, we readers completely understand why. Oshetsky’s artistic vision here is unparalleled. I could not get enough.
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
The birds keep coming. This debut novel begins when its main character wakes from a dream about crows—only to find a severed crow’s head in her hands. The animals keep following her, in her dream life and her waking one, as she reckons with what happened on the long-ago night her sister died. Pulling from horror and the supernatural, Bad Cree is a suspenseful, atmospheric, and deeply feeling story about what connects us to each other, even across species and even after death.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
In Nightbitch, the beast comes from within. This deliciously original novel is about a stay-at-home mom turning into a dog. The animal bursting out of her is ferocious, sensual, and unrestrained. What a delight! I read this book when my toddler was the same age as the main character’s, and I absolutely loved how Yoder captured the untethered animal joy of parenting a young kid, how sometimes you just want to run around and howl at the moon.
Bear by Marian Engel
On this list about women coming into contact with wild creatures, we may have saved the wildest ones for last. Bear is a full-throated account of a lonely librarian’s sexual awakening on a private island with, yes, a bear. It’s a novel that will appall you, amaze you, and, in the end, make you consider what it would be like to do whatever you want in your life—to pursue your desires with full abandon. Perhaps, like Engel’s main character, you just need to go for it. Don’t hold back. (Though I very much hope what you desire isn’t to snuggle up with a bear!)
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
Masterfully written, Story Prize-winning, nationally bestselling, and exquisite at every turn, this collection includes a story called “Yeti Lovemaking.” Ferocity, bestiality and untamed urges, Maria Tatar described, when characterizing the narrative impulse to make a companion of a beast; Ma’s story has all of those, plus loneliness, loveliness, and determination. It channels all of the animal, all of the human, in only a few brief pages. Could there be a more perfect example of a collision with a creature? There could not.
