A New Novel Captures The Heart Of California

With Kept Animals, Kate Milliken has painted a stunning portrait of a state, with its scars in the foreground.

From upstairs, I have a view into the breezeway of the barn. The moon’s so big and high it’s casting shadows and I can see our collie, Lulu, drawn large against the walking path. She is tender-footing her way toward the foals, pressing her nose to the cracks between the stalls, as if to reassure them that they are not alone. Every animal, Mama used to tell me, knows the sound of another animal’s suffering.

I have, of late, been drawn to California novels. Though I’ve lived in New York since 2015, I, like many transplants, long for my imperfect home, the place where I didn’t fully realize my roots were quite so deep until I’d ripped them from their rich, west coast soil.

Kate Milliken’s magnificent debut novel, Kept Animals, is a brutal, necessary depiction of the state, as if it wrenched its heart out and displayed it, still beating, cupped in one palm. It’s a riveting, disturbing portrait of girlhood, from which society often demands cruel…