Nadja Lubiw-Hazard's ​The Life of a Creature

Reviewed by Amanda Earl

(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2026)

For days I have been having trouble focusing. Like many people, I expect. Unnerved by war, dystopia, e-mails from AI, I open books and close them. Recently I received an advance reading copy of The Life of a Creature in the mail. There are piles of books on my to-be-read list, but I asked for this book when I saw it in the Arsenal Pulp Press catalogue because the premise fascinated me: a collection of short fiction by a veterinarian that centred animals. I started to read these short stories, and they were so moving, tender, compelling, and caught me off guard by how brutal they were at times, that I couldn’t put them down.
 
In her introductory author’s note, Lubiw-Hazard writes, “I know for both writer and reader, traumatic stories can be harrowing, but I also believe that writing from this wounded place can be meaningful.” She quotes Salman Rushdie, who talks about answering violence with art and hopes that “harm can be alchemized into healing.” In these stories, that is what I felt.
 
Several stories are linked, featuring a character named Sophie who is trying to cope with the death of her young daughter, who drowned. These stories were heartbreaking and relatable stories of grief. Throughout the book, what I experienced most was awe at how insightful the author was, not only about the human condition, but also about the animals in the story. I felt that she knew me, my grief, my anxieties, my love and care for the world and its creatures, and I haven’t felt that before to this extreme.
 
Every single one of the stories features at least one image that has stayed with me after first reading: the turtle egg, its yolk running and covered in hot sauce to look like blood, and later the sea turtles laying eggs in the sand in TURTLE DREAMS;  the precise and vivid descriptions of the animals cared for by the protagonist and how she cares so deeply for them that it makes her cry; the way the author connects these moments of sadness to lust, love and grief in the opening story THE LIFE OF A CREATURE; the crow caught in a wooden fence in THE ART OF DYING; the scene of the child being killed by a polar bear in CAPTIVE; a man’s wish to be eaten by vultures when he dies when he is diagnosed with cancer in RIVER’S WAKE; the dog in the suitcase in WHAT DWELLS WITHIN, and the character of Jewel’s struggle throughout the story. There are just so many images and they pack such strong feelings into them.
 
A few of the stories include points of view from the animals themselves: the polar bear in the zoo in CAPTIVE; the dog who is beaten to death by a homophobe in YOU’RE NO MARLOW BOY. These points of view are not cheesy or simple; they are complex and highly focused on sensation and the physical. These stories are based on newspaper articles, we learn in the notes. I am astounded by the author’s ability to take a truth and make it real to readers, make us experience what the characters experience, including the animals. This is the power and necessity of fiction.
 
I think of the many conversations David Naimon had with Ursula K. Le Guin and with writers as part of the Crafting with Ursula episodes of Naimon’s beloved literary podcast Between the Covers. One of the terms that came up was “fellow feeling,” this ability to empathize with fellow creatures, not just humans. The Life of a Creature opens with an excerpt from a poem by Joseph Bruchac entitled Prayer: “If we pretend that we are at the center,/that moles and kingfishers,/eels and coyotes are at the edge of grace,/then we circle, /dead moons about a cold sun.” What I loved about this book most is that the animals are part of the story, not outside it. That care for and mistreatment of animals is mirrored by the care for and mistreatment of humans. I need to read works that “write from a wounded place,” as Lubiw-Hazard does here. I find it helpful, satisfying and necessary to know that I am not alone and to realize that there are caring people in the world.
 
I read the opening story aloud to my husband and I will read the whole book to him after we finish our current read. This is a book to be read aloud. It is poetry as much as it is prose, with precise and visceral language and imagery, words chosen not just for their meaning but also for how they sound, embodied language that appeals to all the senses, and characters I care for. I plan to read more by this author. I am looking forward to reading her novel, The Nap-Away Motel (Palimpsest Press, 2019).

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Amanda Earl (she/her) is a working writer, editor, publisher, reviewer, and visual poet who writes on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. Earl is grateful for funding received from the City of Ottawa to work on her manuscript of winter sequences. Earl is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry.  Please visit AmandaEarl.com for more information or subscribe to Amanda Thru the Looking Glass for musings on finding joy in difficult times.