Will is employed to help Wayne feed his many animals, but over time finds himself drawn to Wayne and his philosophy. … Will stood before living predators of enormous size and physical power, creatures that once again set off some deep-dwelling response of recognition and fear and ambivalent euphoria, some reawakened blink of the sleeping senses in an animal who has long forgotten what it means to be prey … Despite feeling trapped in a town similar to the one he grew up in, Will is desperate for cash and agrees to work for JT’s friend Wayne Gage, a Vietnam veteran who collects exotic animals – including lions, tigers, bears, wolves and monkeys. He passed a group of young black guys with a portable speaker playing Kendrick Lamar and he drifted through chained pools of scent – dog pee and sullage and sweet weed smoke …Īfter a particularly egregious, drug-fuelled mistake, Will rents a car and drives west, finding himself in the small Ohio town of Littleproud, where an old school friend is living with her American husband, JT. The dark was sleek and warm and populous and he strolled through Tompkins Square Park where people were walking their dogs and jogging. Not only the skyline of New York, ‘somehow fake seeming in its closeness, a cheesy pull-down backdrop in a tourist photo booth’, but the street level:

In the background, the Occupy movement is mentioned, but the view of those Will is hanging out with is, ‘Forget politics – let’s get high.’īitto brings Will, the places he visits, and all of the people he encounters, to vivid life. Will spends this time constantly drunk or high (or both) but always feeling detached from the privilege surrounding him.

Soon, through Paul and his artist girlfriend Justine, Will is deep in the hedonistic New York art scene. Paul lived with Will and his family when he was younger and the two did not have the best relationship, but all is forgotten and forgiven when young Australian men are helping each other out overseas.

He has been offered a place to stay with his older brother’s best friend, Paul, who has been in New York for seven years and works as a chef. Will has fled to New York from Melbourne, trying to outrun a failed relationship. Wild Abandon is a kind of coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of two very different sides of America (the book itself is divided into two sections, each titled ‘America’), both seen slightly from the outside. Her second, Wild Abandon, was worth the wait. Emily Bitto won the Stella Prize in 2015 for her first novel The Strays.

The strays emily bitto review