The Wildlands
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Named one of BuzzFeed's Best Fiction of 2018
"Geni's character–driven environmental thriller—think Silent Spring by way of Celeste Ng—centers on the survivors of a tornado that destroys an Oklahoma farm and kills the family's father." —O, The Oprah Magazine
When a Category Five tornado ravaged Mercy, Oklahoma, no family in the small town lost more than the McClouds. Their home and farm were instantly demolished, and orphaned siblings Darlene, Jane, and Cora made media headlines. This relentless national attention in the tornado’s aftermath caused great tension with their brother, Tucker, who soon abandoned his sisters and disappeared.
On the three–year anniversary of the tornado, a bomb explodes in a cosmetics factory outside of Mercy, and the lab animals trapped within are released. Tucker reappears, injured from the blast, and seeks the help of nine–year–old Cora. Caught up in the thrall of her charismatic brother, whom she has desperately missed, Cora agrees to accompany Tucker on a cross–country mission to make war on human civilization.
Cora becomes her brother’s unwitting accomplice, taking on a new identity while engaging in acts of escalating violence. Darlene works with Mercy police to find her siblings, leading to an unexpected showdown at a zoo in Southern California. The Wildlands is another remarkable literary thriller from critically acclaimed writer Abby Geni, one that examines what happens when one family becomes trapped in the tenuous space between the human and animal worlds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Disasters both natural and personal are at the heart of Geni's bold and adventurous latest, following 2016's The Lightkeepers. Three years after a tornado devastates the Oklahoma town of Mercy leaving sisters Darlene, Jane, and Cora orphaned and in poverty a nearby cosmetics factory is bombed by animal rights activists. The bombing turns out to be the work of the girls' disappeared brother, Tucker, who abandoned the sisters after a storm took away their home and father. On the lam and badly injured, Tucker kidnaps nine-year-old Cora to help tend his wounds, and to witness his grand plan of destruction as he moves west and targets individuals and establishments that hurt animals. Cora is struck dumb with love for Tucker, whom she remembers only as a special presence, a remnant of her old life, but through her eyes readers can clearly see the cruelty and confusion behind his escalating actions. With Cora missing, tough Darlene works with a kind local cop to find her sister and end Tucker's reign of violence before it can hurt too many or corrupt Cora too irreversibly. While predictable, the novel is particularly notable for its interrogations of human relationships with the natural world, in keeping with Geni's previous works. This is a fast-paced, high-stakes novel that will keep the reader turning the pages.
