Carmen Dog

Combines the cruel humor of Candide with the allegorical panache of Animal Farm. -Entertainment Weekly

Carol is the most unappreciated great writer we’ve got. Carmen Dog ought to be a classic in the colleges by now … It’s so funny, and it’s so keen.
-Ursula K. Le Guin

A rollicking outre satire…. full of comic leaps and absurdist genius. -Bitch

A wise and funny book. -The New York Times

This trenchant feminist fantasy-satire mixes elements of Animal Farm, Rhinoceros and The Handmaid’s Tale…. Imagination and absurdist humor mark [Carmen Dog] throughout, and Emshwiller is engaging even when most savage about male-female relationships. -Booklist

Her fantastic premise allows Emshwiller canny and frequently hilarious insights into the damaging sex-role stereotypes both men and women perpetuate.
-Publishers Weekly

The debut title in our Peapod Classics line, Carol Emshwiller’s genre-jumping debut novel is a dangerous, sharp-eyed look at men, women, and the world we live in.

Everything is changing: women are turning into animals, and animals are turning into women. Pooch, a golden setter, is turning into a beautiful woman-although she still has some of her canine traits: she just can’t shuck that loyalty thing-and her former owner has turned into a snapping turtle. When the turtle tries to take a bite of her own baby, Pooch snatches the baby and runs. Meanwhile, there’s a dangerous wolverine on the loose, men are desperately trying to figure out what’s going on, and Pooch discovers what she really wants: to sing Carmen.

Carmen Dog is the funny feminist classic that inspired writers Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler to create the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award.