Children of the Wild

At the very beginning of Children of the Wild, Roy Young meets a nameless young man living atop a mountain. He fails to bring him back into the valley where he lives, but his sort-of-girlfriend Samantha can, in part by having sex with him. The young man – later named Ennis Duke – becomes tied to all their lives, through the action of World War I and into the years afterward.

At its best, Children of the Wild lives up to its mythic predecessors, both in terms of the touches of The Epic of Gilgamesh woven throughout it and in terms of the genre. The book is a war novel, a coming-of-age novel, and feels like the first chapter of what could be a family epic. It’s beautifully written and at times puts me in mind of Steinbeck.

At times, the mythic nature works against it. The book is primarily focused on the men in the story, and while their presentation as figures of myth makes them feel rich and fascinating, the mythic feel of the women serves more to flatten them. The book will likely be more interesting to male readers.