Largely set in the two and a half years after 15-year-old Alison loses her cherished brother Roy in an horrific car crash--the truth of which is kept from her by a protective community--it charts the grieving process of a family rent asunder by a loss so sudden and brutal it knocks them into a strange, half-way dimension somewhere between the dead and the living.

While Alison¹s deeply religious father and fiercely capable mother find their own ways of dealing with the death of their beloved 18-year-old boy--just weeks before he is due to leave for college--their only remaining child is left to navigate her own way through a maze of emotions, all the while growing from a serious, intelligent teenager into a woman.

Alison¹s increasingly erratic sleeping, eating and mourning rituals, combined with an intense love affair with a fellow pupil at her Catholic high school, send her dangerously close to the edge of life.

Throughout, her writing is compelling in its honesty. Her descriptions of the long nights following the accident, when her family roam the empty rooms of their home searching--but never quite finding--the comfort of sleep, are heart-wrenching, but eloquently told. There’s no mushy sentiment, no lecturing, no point-scoring, no judging. Alison avoids cliches, allowing the reader to experience her pain with no feeling of voyeurism.

After the accident, Alison becomes known in her neighbourhood as "the girl who lost her brother". Thanks to Name All the Animals--which took six years and 18 drafts to complete and caused her to live off the generosity of friends--Alison Smith is now a fine writer. Watch out for her next one.--Carey Green