David Duchnovy mentioned earlier this month that he’d written a book. “It’s a fable, like Animal Farm or Charlotte’s Web; an allegorical story using animals for people,†he told Rolling Stone. Now there’s a full description of Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale, and if you thought it wouldn’t be a book about a cow who united Israel and Paletsine, well, think again! From the official description:
A rollicking, globe-trotting adventure with a twist: a four-legged heroine you won’t soon forget.
Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that — her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer’s family gathered around a bright Box God — and what the Box God reveals about something called an “industrial meat farm†shakes Elsie’s understanding of her world to its core.
There’s only one solution: escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Jerry — excuse me, Shalom — a cranky, Torah-reading pig who’s recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave (in his own mind, at least) turkey who can’t fly, but who can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport.
Elsie is our wise-cracking, pop-culture-reference-dropping, slyly witty narrator; Tom — who does eventually learn to fly (sort of) — dispenses psychiatric advice in a fake German accent; and Shalom, rejected by his adopted people in Jerusalem, ends up unexpectedly uniting Israelis and Palestinians. David Duchovny’s charismatic creatures point the way toward a mutual understanding and acceptance that the world desperately needs.
The book comes out in February, which seems like a cruelly long time to wait to learn more about Elsie.