Wild Life by Amanda Leduc
Reviewed by Gina Catherine Grant
Amanda Leduc weaves a tapestry of the fantastic in her newest novel, Wild Life. The novel feeds on the reader’s appetite for transformation. And for answers. But Wild Life isn’t about concrete answers or certainty; instead, it questions the nature of transformation itself. It’s not always about becoming more, sometimes, what you need is less.
At the outset of the novel, we meet Josiah MacDougall, an outcast in his small village of Middween, Scotland in the year 1908. The townspeople fear him and his father is repelled by him, due to his self-proclaimed ability to converse with animals. His father takes the first chance he gets to rid himself of his heretic son and jumps at the opportunity to sign him up for a Christian mission in Siberia. Maybe by saving other, poorer, Godless souls, Josiah will in turn save his own.
“The novel’s strength lies in its ability to display a parallel dimension to our own that feels more contemporary than science fiction.”
Josiah travels to Siberia with a small group of missionaries, one of whom he develops an innocent yet deep relationship with, Marcus. One day well into the mission, Josiah is approached by two hyenas. They are capable of speech and bipedalism, an unnerving sight in the depths of Siberia. Not to mention Josiah has never seen nor heard of hyenas. He thinks they must be some type of tiger, and describes the first he meets as, “like a cat but is not a cat. Like a dog, but not a dog.”
The hyenas (later identified as Barbara and Kendrith), claim to have been called by the wind, a recurring entity throughout the novel and much larger than nature’s element. They believe they needed to come to Siberia to save Josiah from an impending disaster which ultimately consumes his fellow missionaries, Marcus included. The hyenas know no more, no less, and are skeptical of Josiah’s interpretations.
And still, Josiah turns this terrible, incredible experience into something much larger, causing a reckoning in the generations and chapters to come. Despite the hyenas’ hesitation, Josiah believes he was chosen by God to uplift humanity and rid them of their animality, like God had done to the hyenas by giving them speech. Barbara and Kendrith are wary of his certainty that God has chosen Josiah for this purpose; they are wary that God has anything to do with anything at all.
The rest of the novel spans from 1908 to 2041, told in chapters spanning continents and generations. Connections to the past are present either through the characters’ lineage or the consequences of actions or events. The novel’s strength lies in its ability to display a parallel dimension to our own that feels more contemporary than science fiction. The threads between chapters can run thick to almost imperceptibly thin, but are all tied together nonetheless.
Wild Life displays its mythical fable through a portrayal of binaries: right and wrong, self and other, and most prominently, human and animal. Reading Wild Life is like reading the life of a myth, in all of its interpretations, fascinations and glory.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE
About the Author
AMANDA LEDUC is a disabled writer whose most recent novel, The Centaur's Wife, is "an exquisite magical world, perfectly rendered, for [a] dark and wonderful story about the dream life of outsiders and the disabled" (Heather O'Neill). Her non-fiction book Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space was nominated for the 2020 Governor General’s Award. Her essays and stories have appeared across Canada, the US, the UK and Australia, and she speaks regularly across North America on accessibility and the role of disability in storytelling. Amanda holds a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews. She has cerebral palsy and presently makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario, where she lives with a very lovable dog named Sitka,
About the Reviewer
Gina Catherine Grant is an artist, writer, and former contemporary dancer. She lives in Menahqesk/Saint John, NB, with her tuxedo cat, Richie. Her writing has appeared in The Seaboard Review of Books, It’s Burning Off, and Billie: Visual - Culture - Atlantic.
Book Details
Publisher : Random House Canada
Publication date : March 11 2025
Language : English
Print length : 328 pages
ISBN-10 : 0735272875
ISBN-13 : 978-0735272873
 | A guest post by
|