“Benjamin Percy’s The Wilding is a tour de force meditation and treatise on the nature of violence, the violence of nature, man in the wild, and the wild in man—cleverly disguised as a page-turning adventure. Not just a “must” read, but a need read, this book is timely, terrifying, terrific.”
– Antonya Nelson, author of In the Land of Men and Female Trouble

“There are a hundred ways to feel frightened and lost in a forest, and the excellent, savvy Benjamin Percy can evoke them all. THE WILDING, a brilliant literary novel that feels at times almost like Geoffrey Household’s classic Rogue Male, seems to have been written on his vibrating nerve-endings. This book is filled with dread, sadness, tension and a tireless vision of mankind’s thoughtless devastation of an ancient and more authentic way of life. It is almost impossible to put down. James Dickey must have been whispering to Ben Percy in his sleep.”
– Peter Straub, bestselling author of Ghost Story, A Dark Matter, and Shadowland

“Not your father’s eco-novel. In compelling, image-driven prose, Ben Percy confounds the old polarities about wilderness and development by sending three generations of men into a doomed canyon, and letting so much hell break lose we can’t tell the heros from the villians–which feels exactly right. This is a dark, sly, honest, pleasing, slip-under-your-skin-and-stay-there kind of a book.”
– Pam Houston, bestselling author of Cowboys are My Weakness and Sighthound

“The Wilding is a compelling action narrative, universal in its dimensions while utterly grounded in specific particulars. Ben Percy is a stunning storyteller. His fearful wildernesses, both physical and psychic, kept me up through the night.”
– William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Willow Field

“The Wilding is a virtuoso blend of beauty and violence, hope and despair, tough and touching, lust and terror, literary craft and genre plotting. Like James Dickey, Benjamin Percy drags his characters into the wilderness–into a canyon as black as a gaping mouth, where they struggle to stay alive and in control of what makes them human–but for a new generation of readers concerned with the vanishing West.”
– Danielle Trussoni, author of Angelology and Falling Through the Earth