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Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that—her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer's family gathered around a bright Box God—and what the Box God reveals about something called an "industrial meat farm" shakes Elsie's understanding of her world to its core.
There's only one solution: escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Jerry—excuse me, Shalom—a cranky, Torah-reading pig who's recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave (in his own mind, at least) turkey who can't fly, but who can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport.
Elsie is our wise-cracking, pop-culture-reference-dropping, slyly witty narrator; Tom—who does eventually learn to fly (sort of)—dispenses psychiatric advice in a fake German accent; and Shalom, rejected by his adopted people in Jerusalem, ends up unexpectedly uniting Israelis and Palestinians. David Duchovny's charismatic creatures point the way toward a mutual understanding and acceptance that the world desperately needs.
"Who knew a cow's view of the world was so funny yet so honest and true? Holy Cow is silly and fun from the opening page." —Jeff Ayers, The Denver Post
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Creators
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Awards
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Release date
July 2, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780374712891
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780374712891
- File size: 2106 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from December 15, 2014
A conflicted cow, a Jewish pig and a debonair turkey seek acceptance and enlightenment during a journey across the Middle East. Stop us if you've heard this one before.... Long before he became the face of The X-Files' Fox Mulder or Californication's Hank Moody, Duchovny earned a master's degree in English literature from Yale and was on his way to a Ph.D. As it turns out, his debut novel is a charming fable about dignity and tolerance, complete with anthropomorphized animals and replete with puns, double-entendres and sophisticated humor. The book is narrated by Elsie Bovary, a cow on a small farm in upstate New York who has a clear knowledge of the kind of story she is telling. "I don't know if you've read Animal Farm. It seems like that's a book all human children have to read. Personally I prefer Charlotte's Web, though spiders can be tricky-Harlot's Web anybody? (And eight legs? Really? Two or four is the appropriate number of legs, everybody knows this. Maybe five, maybe. Eight seems desperate to me, or indecisive, indulgent even. You know?)" Upon learning how cows are slaughtered, Elsie plots her escape. To aid her efforts, she agrees to team up with Jerry-also known as Shalom-a Torah-reading pig who plans to use kosher dietary laws to his advantage in Jerusalem, and Tom Turkey, who wants to move to Turkey, naturally. After the obligatory training montage, the trio are off in their human disguises, traveling from Turkey to Israel to Palestine and finally Mumbai. Elsie has a very funny narrative voice, dropping bits of screenplay, suggestions for movie stars to cast (Jennifer Lawrence!), and clever but understated nods to pop culture, rock music and the value of faith. Between the book's sly humor, gently humanist (animalist?) message and wry illustrations by Natalya Balnova, this is a pseudo-children's book that smart adults should greatly enjoy. An offbeat adventure that reads something like Bill Willingham's Fables directed by Ralph Bakshi.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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September 1, 2014
Yes, that's actor/director/screenwriter Duchovny with an upbeat parable of animal--and maybe world--liberation. When a cow named Elsie Bovary inadvertently learns about something awful called an industrial meat farm, she instantly organizes an escape with a Torah-spouting pig named Shalom, newly converted to Judaism, and iPhone-proficient turkey Tom.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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