SOURCE: “The Fabric of Grace,” in Washington Post Book World, September 2, 1990, pp. 1, 8.

In the following review, Le Guin offers positive assessment of Animal Dreams.

The “search for the father” is so common a theme in American fiction that one might be tempted to wonder why so many sons seem to mislay Pa somewhere, and then have epiphanies when they find him. When it's a daughter that seeks the father lost or disguised, however, we are on less familiar ground.

Cosima/Codi Noline/Nolina (seeking identity, she seeks her true name) comes back home to Grace, Ariz., a canyon mining town, hoping to keep an eye on Dad, who though still the town doctor is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and to get a handle on herself. The father's voice and memories alternate with Codi's in the narration to create a haunting interplay of revelation, concealment and confusion...