The Wolf Border : A Novel
Author(s): Sarah Hall
From the award-winning author of Burntcoat and The Electric Michelangelo, one of the most decorated young British writers working today, comes a literary masterpiece: a breathtaking work that beautifully and provocatively surveys the frontiers of the human spirit and our animal drives.
For almost a decade, zoologist Rachel Caine has lived a solitary existence far from her estranged family in England, monitoring wolves in a remote section of Idaho as part of a wildlife recovery program. But a surprising phone call takes her back to the peat and wet light of the Lake District where she grew up. The eccentric Earl of Annerdale has a controversial scheme to reintroduce the Grey Wolf to the English countryside, and he wants Rachel to spearhead the project. Though she’s skeptical, the earl’s lands are close to the village where she grew up, and where her aging mother now lives.
While the earl’s plan harks back to an ancient idyll of untamed British wilderness, Rachel must contend with modern-day realities—health and safety issues, public anger and fear, cynical political interests. But the return of the Grey unexpectedly sparks her own regeneration.
Exploring the fundamental nature of wilderness and wildness, The Wolf Border illuminates both our animal nature and humanity: sex, love, conflict, and the desire to find answers to the question of our existence—the emotions, desires, and needs that rule our lives.
Review(s):
“One of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, Hall offers an earthy novel, successfully exploring ideas of family, maternity, personal demons, social class, and wilderness vs. urban development. Interesting and original, it should have wide appeal.”
“Where does freedom end and wildness begin? Self-preservation and intimacy? Sex and commitment? These are the gray borders Hall inspects...The real story is the one about one woman’s coming to terms, not only with her family, but with her own untameable nature.”
“A bold, sensuous novel.”
“Superb...Hall’s skill as a writer ‘borders’ on the magical. She captures with ease and alacrity the territory between the interior, Rachel’s thoughts and impressions, and the exterior, physical reality. She one-ups Joseph Conrad’s famous adage that writers should make us see. Passage after passage move seamlessly between the two realms and mesmerize with flawless imagery and astute observation...In 2013, Hall was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. THE WOLF BORDER reinforces such praise.”
“The themes of Sarah Hall’s fifth novel, THE WOLF BORDER, interlock like gears: men and women together, family, the animal/human divide, the idea of wilderness. The wolf border -- the line beyond which wolves roam freely -- turns out to be porous, in each of us, and in the culture at large... More dazzling is her ability to distill so much into the pages of this completely satisfying novel -- those big themes taken at a loose, loping run with a hint of menace.”
“THE WOLF BORDER tracks Rachel through romantic and familial entanglements, childbirth and a series of dramatic events surrounding the wolf project in Cumbria. The plotting and characterization are crisp and effective, but perhaps the greatest pleasure is her prose.”
“I imagine that THE WOLF BORDER -- stylish, intelligent and a cracking read -- will mark the point at which [Hall] stops being promising, and becomes something of a star.”
“A thrilling tale of politics and power ... Compulsively absorbing and masterfully plotted, [THE WOLF BORDER] confirms Hall as one of our finest fiction writers.”
“The skills that Sarah Hall demonstrates in her highly anticipated fifth novel are significant and profound... So it is that the descriptions of altered or threatened landscapes for which she is celebrated ... convey beauty but resist the picturesque, instead posing questions about it.”
This is a book overflowing with life and history, propelled by a writer who engages all the reader’s senses.”
ISBN: 9780062208484