Wolfish: The stories we tell about fear, ferocity and freedom

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Wolves abound through cultural folklore and through literature - vilified and venerated in equal measure. In Wolfish, Erica Berry examines these depictions, alongside her own research of the wolf for nearly a decade, to get to the heart of what our stories about the wolf reveal about our relationships with one another and ourselves: 'What does it mean to want to embody the same creature from which you are supposed to be running'The wolf is so often depicted as the male predator, preying on the vulnerable girl/woman who strays from the path; the she-wolf meanwhile depicts women who sit outside the accepted boundaries of feminine behaviour. Berry openly recounts her own uncomfortable and sometimes frightening experiences as a woman to try to understand how we navigate our fears when threat can seem constant. Through it all, Berry finds new expressions for courage and survival: how to be a brave human and animal member of our fragile, often dangerous world.

Reviews

'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' - ELIZABETH RUSH, author of RISING, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Startling in its scope, covering everything from fairy tales to domestic violence. This book should be required reading' -LA Times

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


'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' -Vulture

'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' - V. V. GANESHANANTHAN, author of LOVE MARRIAGE, longlisted for the Women's Prize

'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' - ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH, author of THE FACT OF A BODY

'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' - MICHELLE NIJHUIS, author of BELOVED BEASTS

'Wolfish starts with a single wolf and spirals through nuanced investigations of fear, gender, violence and story. A gorgeous achievement' - BLAIR BRAVERMAN, author of WELCOME TO THE GODDAMN ICE CUBE

Author Bio

Erica Berry is a writer based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, where she was a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times Magazine, Yale Review, Outside Magazine, Catapult, Atlantic, Guernica and elsewhere. Winner of the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Kurt Brown Prize in non-fiction, she has received fellowships and funding from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House, the Ucross Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. A former Writer-in-Residence with the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, she is currently a Writer-in-the-Schools with Literary Arts in Portland. @ericajberry | ericaberry.com