An Innocent Animal: A Novel

In this sharp, intoxicating novel, a middle-aged woman’s affair with a much younger man turns her Canary Islands getaway into a reckoning with past secrets.

Vanda is forty-five years old, lives in Milan with a stable career in insurance, and has just ended a relationship with a married man. When a doctor advises her to take some time to recuperate, she organizes an off-season trip and sets out alone for Fuerteventura. At the resort, she meets Ben, a twenty-three-year-old who works there as a masseur. Ben is not only attractive, he also knows how to take care of Vanda’s body, with a mix of firmness and tenderness. She is immediately overwhelmed, and her initial attraction quickly turns into an erotic obsession.

As the landscape is swept by a sandstorm from the Sahara, the two begin a relationship. But a shadow soon falls on their holiday romance: Ben’s brother arrives on the island like a character from a horror story, dredging up a dark past.