Wolfish

«Berry's path of inquiry is a deeply personal one. This unorthodox approach allows for the complexity of both Berry's personal journey and the wolf's status as a rich cultural avatar . . . [she] is a skillful guide, highlighting the wolf's influence on everything from creation myths to viral memes and from government policies to proverbs»

«Berry writes with a strong sense of assurance, suspense and wit, balancing her personal experiences, the peregrinations of OR-7 and the history of humankind's fraught relationships with wolves»

«A book unlike any other . . . A surprising and powerful read»

«Berry draws on a huge, rich depository of lupine literature. Wolfish is more than just an interesting exercise in cultural anthropology, though. The book's most obvious ancestor is Helen Macdonald's megahit of 2014, H Is for Hawk; it has that same intellectual range and a prose style that pushes [. . .] towards the poetic»

«Startling in its scope, covering everything from fairy tales to domestic violence. This book should be required reading»

«Singular . . . a book entirely its own»

«Explores the contours of human relationships - and what it means to be a woman - through this most familiar yet mysterious of creatures»

«I devoured every startling, lyrical, haunting, yet all-too-familiar page of Wolfish. Such a stunning achievement, it left me feeling like one of the pack»

«Terror propels Erica Berry's exhilarating book . . . No matter where Berry weaves, she sniffs out fascinating insights. And she writes about it in clear, beautiful language»

«Erica Berry's Wolfish is a marvel: a beautiful piece of work as wide-ranging as it is precise. Berry's keen eye and fresh, startling prose are not only an excellent guide to nature and the world around us, but also to what our reactions to the landscape tell us about ourselves, what we fear and who we might become. You won't want to miss this»

«An exhilarating book - intricate, thoughtful, and thick with connections»

«Berry's braided approach renders Wolfish both a vulnerable self-investigation and a wide-ranging exploration of fear - and, ultimately, an antidote to it. She makes a stirring case for walking alongside the symbolic wolf»

«Ferocious and beautiful . . . The most powerful theme that runs through Wolfish is human fear, and here Berry's vulnerability and strength is displayed in poignant detail»

«Wolfish's explorations of predators and prey in the natural world and in the man-made world defies easy categorization. The way Berry weaves an ecological adventure story about OR-7, a wolf that makes a record-breaking journey away from its Oregon pack, with tales from her own coming-of-age, asks readers to reconsider their relationships with fear and the creatures who cause it»

«Powerful . . . delivered with an unflinching and vulnerable honesty. Berry is just as adept conveying the pangs of heartache and homesickness as she is the tightening walls of anxiety and the shadows of surveillance. As she slowly unravels humans' misplaced fear of wolves, she makes a compelling argument for coexistence between species, creating a necessary environmental memoir: that which acknowledges fear in its ongoing pursuit of hope»

«Kaleidoscopic . . . [A] lyrical inquiry, Erica simultaneously details her own coming-of-age as she moves away from home and wrestles with inherited beliefs about fear, danger, femininity, and the body»

«Wolfish starts with a single wolf and spirals through nuanced investigations of fear, gender, violence and story. A gorgeous achievement»

«Elegant and elegiac, Wolfish asks how we live alongside, and honour, both the wilds we do such harm to and the fears that run wild within us. Erica Berry beautifully weaves literature, science, philosophy, history, and her own memories to deconstruct millenia of myth-making around wolves, urging a return to something even more powerful than the tales we've spun: untangling the creature from our fear, to better understand both it and ourselves. This is a book composed of what humanity has made, yes, but above all it's a gorgeous reminder that we, too, are part of nature»

«Comparisons to Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk are a fine starting point, but Wolfish leans wilder and more primal»

«The space between humans and wolves is filled with stories, from fairy tales to family histories to our own fears and desires. With courage and insight, Erica Berry illuminates this tangled territory, inviting us to explore it for ourselves»

«Insightful and gorgeously written, Wolfish shows us that stories we tell about predators and prey are always about more than they seem. This exploration of violence and vulnerability never stopped surprising me»

«I can't stop talking about Erica Berry's debut Wolfish - it is a passionate and personal portrayal of the wildness in the world and in ourselves. This is a fierce book and an important one. With compelling and lyrical prose that reveals a depth of knowledge and research, Berry looks not just at wolves but the wolf nature in all of us and around us - asking us important questions about fear and identity and our relationship to the natural world. She spins out connections between the natural world and the self that are both important investigations and insightful revelations. Wolfish is a triumph of a debut - cementing Berry as an important new voice»

«Part nature essays, part cultural symbolism analysis, Wolfish is captivating all the way through, exploring fear, myth, meaning, and our relationship to nature»

«Enticing . . . There's a lot to unpack here, but the deft storytelling makes for a sensitive, satisfying read»

«Subtle and erudite»