On Sale: May 19, 2026
Page Count: 272 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN-13: 9781538773284

$18.99

$24.99 CAD

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For readers of Shark Heart and Hollow Kingdom, a funny, magical, and tender debut novel following a lonely, conflict-averse man whose sudden ability to understand animals sends him on a wild romp around NYC, and ultimately helps him discover his own voice.

Strolling through Central Park on a blind date with the hilarious, irrepressible Molly Bent, Henry Parsons feels hopeful for the first time in years. He’s even daring to wonder if he and Molly might have a future together… when a migratory warbler, the sweetest of little birds, tells him to f*** off.

A gentle soul, troubled enough by the unkindness of fellow humans, Henry tries to brush the moment aside as a hallucination. But soon he’s hearing voices everywhere: dogs mocking their owners, sparrows fat-shaming each other, police horses profiling attendees at a street fair — even a pontificating, misogynistic snake. The man who never speaks up for himself is now besieged by animals who do.

When (inevitably) he overhears three rats discussing a corpse in the New York subway, he lets it slip to Molly. She’s keen to investigate, and Henry’s desperate for a second date, so he follows her nervously into an abandoned tunnel under the West Fourth Street Station. There, sure enough, they find a body… and the murderers find them.

Cue the most terrifying week of this cautious man’s life. Inspiration and courage arrive, unexpectedly, from a pair of feuding betta fish and the neighbor’s yapping Pomeranian — whose wisdom will transform both Henry and Molly forever.

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Robert Isaacs

About the Author

Robert Isaacs has survived an eventful life. He has dodged tear gas near the Mount of Olives, escaped an angry hippo in the Okavango Delta, roasted marshmallows over cooling lava in the highlands of Guatemala, and been run over by a boat off the west coast of Australia. In his youth he supported himself as a juggler and unicyclist on the streets of San Francisco before turning to music; over the course of thirty years he conducted everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Cook Islands, released a dozen CD’s, and earned a Grammy nomination. It’s Hard to Be an Animal is his first novel.

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