PET, PET, SLAP

Rocky meets Elmore Leonard meets Miranda July as Pillow Wilson, a past-his-prime boxer, trains for his last title shot. Shenanigans ensue.

Having recently undergone an ethical awakening, Pillow has converted to veganism and is in the middle of trying to re-home his menagerie of exotic pets (including Jersey Joe the sloth and Rigoberto the shark) in humane animal shelters. His roommate, Sherlock Holmes, has recently faked his own death by waterfall and has now gone incognito and is Pillow's in-house doping expert. The thing is, Pillow doesn't feel all that motivated to train for his next big fight, and he's further distracted from his training when his car and pet shark mysteriously disappear. Luckily, Sherlock is a master of deduction. What follows is part underdog sports story, part work of Neozoological Surrealism, and part existential mystery novel. Andrew Battershill is the husband of the writer Suzannah Showler and the father of Djuna. He is the author of two previous novels. His work has been longlisted for the Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and he was the winner of the 2019 ReLit Award in the Novel category. He works as public librarian on the unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.