"If it's a thriller you're after, The Wilding doesn't disappoint, taking a story as old as the woods and fashioning it into something a bit sleeker and more psychological — a bit closer to where we live."
Echo Canyon is a disappearing pocket of wilderness outside of Bend, Oregon, and the site of conflicting memories for Justin Caves and his father Paul. It’s now slated for redevelopment as a golfing resort. When Paul suggests one last hunting trip, Justin accepts, hoping to get things right with his father this time, and agrees to bring his son Graham along.As the weekend unfolds, Justin is pushed to the limit by the reckless taunting of his father, the physical demands of the terrain, and the menacing evidence of the hovering presence of bear. All the while, he remembers the promise he made to his skeptical wife: to keep their son safe.
Percy is very good at wreaking havoc with his many interconnected plots and then remaking, metaphorically and literally. He is also a courageous realistic who presents unpalatable truths.
…his writing is as natural, dark, and deep as the woods he writes about. At 31, Percy is as promising a writer as anyone on a certain New York magazine’s list of promising writers under 40.
The Wilding is an urgent and haunting look at the darker side of our nature and at our often futile attempts to control and manage the natural world.
Percy’s writing in this novel is recklessly passionate, ferocious and fast-paced, but his thinking about these subjects is profound and carefully reasoned.
If it’s a thriller you’re after, The Wilding doesn’t disappoint, taking a story as old as the woods and fashioning it into something a bit sleeker and more psychological — a bit closer to where we live.
..powerfully written first novel……he delineates his characters with a knife-sharp psychological edge.
Just as Percy demonstrates how men manage danger, he’s equally adept at revealing the odd ways men also create it. Percy’s rendering of their psychological dance is masterful.
Percy’s novel perfectly captures our ambiguous attitudes toward the natural world, the tensions between rural and urban, the way that untamed wildness carries both grace and terror.
The Wilding wraps its arms around some big themes: the vanishing wilderness, a dissolving marriage, and the shell-shocked re-adjustment to domestic life after combat. It’s a lot to pack into 250 pages, but Percy manages to do it with remarkable ease.