The Animators Synopsis
She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever. In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of a party.
Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous pass, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.
Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel's difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership.
Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. When the only other partner Sharon has ever truly known-her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy-reappears, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming. A funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood.
About This Edition
Kayla Rae Whitaker Press Reviews
'An engrossing, exuberant ride through all the territories of love - familial, romantic, sexual, love of friends, and, perhaps above all, white-hot passion for the art you were born to make ... I wish I'd written The Animators.' -- Emma Donoghue, author of Room and The Wonder
'The Animators crackles with intelligence; Whitaker's remarkable ear for dialogue reads as if Aaron Sorkin wrote an episode of Girls. She expertly captures the dynamic that exists between women when they're alone with each other, when performative parts of femininity dissolve.' -- Sian Cain - The Guardian
'There's something exciting about The Animators ... it's the confidence of this pacey, passionate novel which really makes you feel that you might be witnessing the dawn of a brilliant career ... there is insight in Whitaker's portrayal of that endlessly complex thing, the simultaneously intense and fragile female friendship.' -- Jane Graham - The Big Issue
'A compulsively readable portrait of women as incandescent artists and intimate collaborators.' - Elle
'The Animators is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sharply funny, arrestingly unforgettable novel about love and genius, the powerful obsessiveness of artistic creation, and the equally powerful undertow of the past. Kayla Rae Whitaker writes like her head is on fire.' -- Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man
'Every artist must come from somewhere; this is something you try to outrun, even as home fuels the creative engine. The Animators is a novel about a pair of cartoonists, but it's also about the complexity of creative friendship, about balance and jealousy, growing into yourself and living with your talent and trying to actually, impossibly get along in this cracked and unjust world. The result is unapologetic and raucous and compulsively readable; it is potato-chip-friendly and deeply, generously wise.' -- Charles Bock, author of Alice & Oliver
'[An] outstanding debut ... Whitaker skillfully charts the creative process, its lulls and sudden rushes of perfect inspiration. And in the relationship between Mel and Sharon, she has created something wonderful and exceptional: a rich, deep, and emotionally true connection that will certainly steal the hearts of readers.' - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
'A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth. That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply, deeply funny is a testament to Whitaker's formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page and Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.' -- Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest 'The Animators is a story of female friendship, but one with honesty and bite. Sharon and Mel's creative partnership defines their relationship as much as their gender and the story is never clouded with sentimentality.' - Emerald Street
'The Animators is about trying to make art, find love and keep sane amongst the chaos of everyday life ... Whitaker's heroes have that cartoon quality of being more brightly coloured and clearly drawn than reality yet so human as to make them utterly absorbing. It hurts when they get hit and you soar when they succeed - more than anything else, you just want to spend more time with them.' -- Ross McIndoe - The Skinny
'An exquisite portrait of a life-defining partnership ... [The Animators] creeps up on you and then swallows you whole.' STARRED REVIEW - Kirkus
'Female friendship has rarely been described so expertly than in this buzzy tale of two pals working on an animated film, the success of which drives a wedge between them.' - Marie Claire
'This bright debut from Kayla Rae Whitaker reworks the familiar buddy novel into a story of two young women united by ambition, artistic talent, and enterprise ... A vivid, intensely rendered portrait.' PICK OF THE WEEK - The Saturday Age
'Suffused with humour, tragedy, and deep insights about art and friendship, this lively novel will make you wish Mel and Sharon's films existed off the page.' - Who Weekly
'I never stopped being surprised by The Animators. Not just by the beautifully and organically engineered twists and turns of its plot, but by its sensitive tracing of the ebbs and flows of the friendship and creative partnership at its heart. Sharon and Mel - the animators of the title - are as brilliantly drawn as two of their own creations, and I felt powerfully invested in them all the way through. If A Little Life made you cry, this is the novel for you.' -- Simon - Foyles Bookshop
