The Sacred Beasts

“Pushcart Prize finalist Bev Jafek’s The Sacred Beasts is a fiercely feminist novel that makes space for women’s stories and art in the midst of macho arenas . . . All the characters are forceful presences in this atmospheric novel that is all about valuing women’s ideas, stories, art, and bodies.” — Rebecca Foster, Foreword Reviews

“In the eponymous metaphor of sacred beasts, the novel presents an affirmative vision of the potential of LGBT people that is romantic yet subtle, and on several levels, intellectually provocative." — Jim Clark, GLBT Literature

Ruth, a brilliant zoologist and geologist, has just retired with her lover, Katia, to her family home in the southern tip of Argentinean Patagonia. Ruth conceives a unique way of dealing with her grief over Katia’s sudden suicide with the creation of an outdoor art garden made of cast-off objects and garbage. Sylvie, a young French artist, is drawn to the art garden and she and Ruth discover that they are kindred spirits. They travel to Spain’s Costa Brava and then on to Barcelona—Ruth filtering the world through her feminist political and environmental theories and the concept that liberated women are sacred beasts, and Sylvie capturing the world around her with a vivid, penetrating artist eye.