The Wilding

Starred review from July 26, 2010
Percy's excellent debut novel (after the collection Refresh, Refresh) digs into the ambiguous American attitude toward nature as it oscillates between Thoreau's romantic appreciation and sheer gothic horror. The plot concerns a hunting trip taken by Justin Caves and his sixth-grade son, Graham, with Justin's bullying father, Paul, a passionate outdoorsman in failing health who's determined to spend one last weekend in the Echo Canyon before real estate developer Bobby Fremont turns the sublime pocket of wilderness into a golfing resort. Justin, a high school English teacher, has hit an almost terminally rough patch in his marriage to Karen, who, while the boys camp, contemplates an affair with Bobby, though she may have bigger problems with wounded Iraq war vet Brian, a case study in creepy stalker. The men, meanwhile, are being tracked by a beast and must contend with a vengeful roughneck roaming the woods. A taut plot and cast of deeply flawed characters—Justin is a masterwork of pitiable wretchedness—will keep readers rapt as peril descends and split-second decisions come to have lifelong repercussions. It's as close as you can get to a contemporary Deliverance.

August 15, 2010

Will a family camping trip turn deadly? Don't hold your breath. Percy's first novel, after two story collections (Refresh, Refresh, 2007, etc.), is a painfully slow tease.

Percy returns to the high desert and dense woods of central Oregon for his study of the Caves family. They live in Bend. There's old man Paul, the hands-on owner of a company that builds cabins; his son Justin, burnt-out high-school English teacher, married to Karen, a dietitian; and Graham, their 12-year-old. They've been having problems. Paul's recent heart attack has intensified his blustering machismo; Karen's miscarriage has soured their marriage. Paul wants to revive a family tradition: a hunting expedition to Echo Canyon. It's their last chance before the canyon disappears, victim of a major development. So the three males set off, leaving Karen behind; she loathes her father-in-law. A dark outcome is foreshadowed. There's a TV report of a grizzly mauling two teenage girls, and a hostile local who resents these citified intruders. Justin finds a rotting corpse in the woods. At night, he can't shake the feeling that they're being watched; and what's that sniffing outside the tent? These are standard come-ons. Back in Bend, a creepy vet is stalking Karen, and the Echo Canyon developer, more forthrightly, is trying to seduce her; both attempts fizzle, as the vet is felled by a migraine and the developer loses his dentures. These secondary story lines distract from the hunting expedition, where not all the drama is external. Paul, unmoored by the disappearance of his greatest love, his hunting dog, is itching for a fight with his son, who he sees as a wimp; his hostility explodes into a knockdown, drag-out fight. The author's point about our primitive selves is a stale one, shackled to stereotypes. As for the great showdown between man and beast, it's delayed until almost the end.

Unsatisfying, both as suspense and as an inquiry into our violent impulses.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2010
Wilderness, in several senses, is at the root of this ambitious first novel. A man named Justin; his impulsive, willful father; and his studious, school-age son spend a weekend camping and hunting in an Oregon wilderness area that will soon become a golf resort. Portents of danger accompany them: a rattler in their tent, an enraged redneck, and signs of a marauding bear. But its granddad who seems the greatest threat, and Justin, who has always shied away from confrontation, worries that even if they survive, the fabric of family may not. Percy skillfully limns the psychic wildernesses of his characters even as he paints a vivid image of central Oregons high desert, the impact of development, and the divide between capitalism and conservation. A parallel story of Justins angst-ridden wife, who is being stalked by an ex-marine who suffered a horrific head wound in Iraq, is also effective; but it creates one more psychic wilderness than the book can handle. The Wilding seems a bit overambitious, but, even so, it draws readers in and holds them in its grasp.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)