Man and woman circle one another until he is led to her bed, where he remains for much of this honest, deeply erotic novel. Their private world develops with an intense closeness that dominates the exquisite prose. As the two strangers become passionately intertwined in this doomed unreality she, skittish and ravenous, and he, shy and decorous, fall in love. This book traces their clandestine affair through ill-fated, electric liaisons in bedrooms, hotel suites and outdoors, close to the nature that is integral to their story. LANDSCAPE WITH ANIMALS is a hypnotic tale of a love that winds through the erotic ritual of repulsion, attraction, desire and defeat. It is good, honest, unflinching writing about about sex - the most basic instinct known to woman, man and beast. And it is moving and sexy.