Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals
By: Laurie Zaleski / Narrated By: Erin Moon
Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
Oh a mighty HUZZAH for Moms and Animals!
Funny Farm starts off with a whizbang of a scene: 5-year old Laurie Zaleski and her older sister and younger brother are being shouted at to stay down, keep their heads from the windows as their mother speeds and careens the car through streets, and down roads, and finally comes to a dead halt in the middle of nowhere. Her mom, the redoubtable Annie McNulty, has just taken the kids and left their abusive dad, the husband who’s made her life a joke and a hell. She has no money, no skills, has only been the ever-perfect wife, but violent VIOLENT scenes cannot be erased from her kids’ minds, and she’ll not have the bastard adding to even more bad memories.
Their new home? A shack without running water, electricity, once the hangout of teenagers for all their illicit activities. Where once the kids had toys and nice rooms? Now?
Nothing.
…Except… Annie and her heart, spirit, dedication, and absolutely! her devotion.
-AND- the castoff animals Annie runs into at one of her jobs with Animal Control.
The Publisher’s Summary of this makes Funny Farm sound like it’ll be the story of Laurie’s new “Funny Farm” in New Jersey; the story of a businesswoman by day, animal rescuer by night. Nay, I tell you. While there is indeed plenty of that evolution and current reality, this truly comes out as one woman’s super-heroic life. She modeled the best for her kids, and through it all, she kept her psychopathic husband as at bay as possible. At the time, however, fathers had sooo many rights. I used to have nightmares, myself, when I was a kid, of my parents getting a divorce, and I’d be forced to visit my dad. Indeed, Laurie and her siblings are forced to do that very thing, even when he’s performed acts of great malice and cruelty at their home, the original “Funny Farm”. Even after the whole town’s witnessed Annie clinging to the trunk of his speeding car as he tries to throw her from it, and she finally lands with a sickening thud, fingers bleeding. She was only trying to get her kids back, and the Courts would STILL see that the father kept his rights.
All this ends with one final act of savagery, so don’t say I didn’t warn you if you find yourself weeping, like, a LOT throughout this story. Annie was so very courageous, staying as matter-of-fact and as grounded as her children needed her to be through some pretty horrific scenes. And I s’pose I wasn’t reading the Publisher’s Summary too carefully because there’s this, you see: Laurie always loved her mother, Annie, and promised that one day she’d provide her mom with a bit of land as a spot for her to truly allow herself to rescue neglected and abused animals. -BUT- I was sooo surprised with how it actually came to happen, like, the timing. I was startled, I was in agony, I was crying m’ danged head off. That said? Just read this review and do NOT read the dadgummed PS if you’re like me, and you actually LIKE being taken by surprise, and you actually LIKE bawling hysterically… I’m telling you; trust me on this.
Erin Moon does a fabulous job with the narration, perfectly capturing the unbridled emotions of little kids and by bouncing between the kids and Annie. Then, as Laurie ends each chapter with stories of lives on Funny Farm, Moon delivers each snapshot of lives lived so very well. Plus, when we got to some of the animals that made me wonder if Laurie was truly sooo nutty about EVERY animal, going to great lengths where I would’ve given up and “faced the inevitable” and “ended the suffering” of some, Moon emotes absolutely the exhaustion that comes with the attempts made. The great joy when Love saves the day. The great great sorrow when Life ends for us all, beloved animal companions… and Moms… included. I was cheering; I was sobbing. Just Brava, Ms. Moon!!!
Situated in New Jersey, dude! if ever I’m there? I’m so THERE! I WANT to see all those animals! And I want to meet Laurie!
-AND-
I want to hear more about Annie… what a wonderful story; what a great Mom!
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