The first of its kind in scale and technique, American Animals depicts the final act of O’Neil’s saga in which a great flood wipes the slate clean. This titanic seascape, nine by twelve feet in size, is littered with dozens of finely wrought male heads. Whether floating above or sinking below the surface, drifting or drowning, the experience appears to be one of quiet meditation. Both viewer and men are lulled by waves whose gentle slopes evoke locks of flowing hair rather than a righteous deluge. O’Neil’s seascape is rendered complacent as its denizens, whose vacant expressions belie the unfeeling ambivalence which led them to this end.

"And then you see the waves without pattern, scooping up everyone, throwing them around like so many floating heads, and you can only laugh in your sobbing about all the silly head bobbers. Laughter can shake you from the delirium of grief".
- Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water