In
Beatrice and Virgil, Henry is a writer whose previous book was a bestselling novel about animals. When his publisher turns down his new book, a flip book that contains both a novel and nonfiction section about the Holocaust, Henry is crushed and gives up writing. He and his wife move to a new city where Henry receives a strange package containing a Flaubert short story and part of a play that centers around two animals, Beatrice (a donkey) and Virgil (a monkey). The sender of the package wants help finishing his play. Henry seeks him out and finds the amateur playwright to be a taxidermist with stuffed versions of Beatrice and Virgil in his shop. As Henry learns more about the play, which just features conversations between Beatrice and Virgil, he comes to understand that the taxidermist is also writing about the Holocaust too. Yann Martel's novel (author of
Life of Pi) has received mixed reviews with the USA Today saying, "But somehow Martel brilliantly guides the reader from the too-sunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man's shop and Europe's past. Everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished and moved."
