Book excerpt: After Rae's ear is shot off by a jittery security guard at the health food store, the insurance settlement allows her to take a year off from teaching. She spends it volunteering at the Los Angeles Zoo. These days, except for her best friend Jennie, Rae has little use for human beings. She loves cats-lots of cats. The refugee she cares for, airlifted from Afghanistan to safety, is not a person but a mountain goat. As the US goes to war and baboons fall deeply, tragically, in love, Rae's involvement with Gorilla Theater--street agitators raising awareness of animal rights--leads inexorably to confrontations over human rights. Especially when Jennie is disappeared. Confessions of a Carnivore is an antic romp through a minefield, a novel about animal behavior, endangered species, endangered democracy, and love.