Missing the ark.

Growing up in East Van in the 80s, her active but troubled imagination makes it difficult to live with her dysfunctional family: her Scottish father speaks in tongues and lives in a locked basement room until he disappears, while her dental hygienist mother criticizes her parenting and juggles a number of lovers. The novel follows Agnes' relationship with Buffalo man, a divorced taxidermist whom she follows home from the Stanley Park Zoo, and the jealous chimpanzee who lives with him.