"Sophie is an amateur naturalist with a rare genetic gift: the ability to see a marvelous kingdom of invisible, sentient creatures that share a vital, symbiotic relationship with humankind. To record her observations, Sophie creates a personal bestiary and, as she relates the strange abilities of these endangered beings, her tales become extraordinary meditations on love, sex, evolution, extinction, truth, and self-knowledge"--

"Animal Truth and Other Stories is a collection of eco-fabulist tales in which adventures with fantastic animals and real science lead to metamorphoses of the heart. Familiar legends, from Faust and Oedipus to werewolves and time travel, appear in radically new ways: An artist obsessed with species extinction unwittingly summons a demonic double when he creates a "banquet" featuring a baked mermaid. A brilliant woman studying a rare fish makes a soul-shattering discovery about motherhood. A time-travelling billionaire escapes his modern life only to have his heart broken by a lovely creature in Earth's remote past. Each tale in this collection turns into gold the prickling straw of anxieties about our continued life on the planet. By turns playful, terrifying, haunting, and sensuous, these stories inspire wonder at the interwoven lives of human and nonhuman beings"--