See the Cover for Transformative ‘A Real Animal’ by Emeline Atwood (Exclusive)

A glimpse into another world jumpstarts a pensive journey in A Real Animal.

Emeline Atwood’s new novel follows a decade in one woman’s search for the right direction in life after she encounters a different, wilder world. Set to debut in July 2026, A Real Animal has been dubbed as “epic and transformative” in its exploration of both the “sublime and natural worlds.”

Atwood’s novel introduces readers to Lucy, a college senior coping with a sexual assault, when she “gets a glimpse of a different plane of existence — one that is more wild, physical, animal.” The experience is life-changing, and Lucy turns her world upside down: she leaves home, goes no-contact with her mother, splits from her long-term partner and trades him for a lively man who also has a tendency towards violence.

“As she changes cities, friends and partners, an otherworldly existential force thrums in the back of her mind,” the book’s synopsis reads. “It urges her to reject the ordinary, but also reminds her that she is alone in the world.”

“She feels it in the ocean while deep-sea diving, in the cold silences from her mother, in the unknowing gaze of the man she thought would be her soulmate,” the synopsis continues.

A Real Animal follows Lucy’s growth throughout 10 years — a span of time in which she feels both extreme happiness and crushing pain. Ultimately, her journey leads her back home, where she has to grapple with the fact that “being human itself might mean feeling alone, and wild, and unknowable.”

The protagonist seeks both “extraordinary things and extremely ordinary things,” Atwood tells PEOPLE — a wild, adventurous life and a domestic one with family; to be known deeply and to be unknowable. Lucy’s journey is, in many ways, a search for the most fulfilling life, wherever and whatever that is.

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“I think much of Lucy’s story is about reaching for that “thing” in the distance that you believe will finally complete you, without knowing what that thing is,” Atwood says. “What is that shadowy thing out there that we’re certain will fulfill us?”

She continues, “I think this book is maybe about how being human can sometimes mean knowing very little about yourself but feeling capable of nearly anything.”

A Real Animal arrives via Catapult on July 7, 2026 and will be available wherever books are sold.