Phillips begins at her high point and then burns her way down. She is not looking for redemption or forgiveness. She is not apologizing. She had ambition and ego and blew millions of dollars on coke.

Bestial.” BEAR | By Julia Phillips | Hogarth | 304 pp. | $28 A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 2024, Page 17 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Hairy Situation.

Julia Phillips’s 2019 debut novel, “Disappearing Earth,” was universally praised as a uniquely brilliant work of literary excellence. About the kidnapping of two sisters on the Kamchatka ...