My Stupid Intentions is the autobiography of a beech marten named Archy. Born into poverty, maimed by an accident, he is sold into servitude by his mother and taught to read and write by Solomon—a pawnbroking fox whose knowledge derives from a Bible that fell on his head while he was busy feeding on a hanged man.
A vigorous and intense story, even if it doesn’t always seem nuanced in its references to either animal nature or theological inquiry ... The novel’s musings about free will and suffering are murky, but there’s a powerful, cold clarity in Archy’s deadly encounters with other animals and the reflexive malice he brings to them. If evil doesn’t exist, then malice is just a fact of nature.
This darkly beguiling novel casts its enchantments with an eye trained on the human heart, with its false chambers and rough, bestial inclinations. A remarkable education in the grief of staying alive.
