Private Wilderness

In an age of publishing that seems to demand every new book come with a readymade marketing hook, it can be a real pleasure to encounter a gimmick-free novel attempting to honestly and straightforwardly tackle weighty, universal themes.

The thematic content at the heart of Benjamin Percy's debut novel, The Wilding, is as old as storytelling itself: the often-strained relationships between husbands and wives and fathers and sons; civilization's trampling march through nature; the corresponding tendency of nature to periodically fight back. That the book manages to so often feel fresh is a testament to Percy's strong prose, his eye for the small detail, and the wise decision to set those themes against the backdrop of a very particular place, at a very particular time.

That place is Bend, Oregon, a once-rugged town at a kind of crossroads, struggling to deal with a population influx and the sprawling growth that's come with it: cookie-cutter condos, big-box stores, SUVs purchased not for their off-road capabilities but to shuttle children to school and soccer practice.

Justin, the thirty-something high school English teacher at the center of the novel's overlapping narratives, is a Bend native, and finds himself conflicted by the changes. "He rolls his eyes at the way big-box stores sprout up like fungus, at the way Californians outnumber Oregonians, at the way MapQuest can't keep up with all the development, but at the same time, he likes Gap and Starbucks, likes not having to drive to Portland for the things he wants."

Justin's father, Paul, meanwhile, is like a relic from Bend's rough-and-tumble, blue-collar past, a man equally comfortable with an axe or a rifle, prone to locker-room sayings like "Pain is weakness leaving the body." Even after a heart attack, he continues to lift weights in his garage, continues to guzzles beer and bourbon.

While Bend and its environs provide the backdrop for the story, it's the strained relationships between its characters—all of them at crossroads of their own—that provide the book's real tensions. Justin worries his father is out of control, yet he's still a bit too intimidated by the old man to confront him directly. Meanwhile, he's grown disillusioned with his job, and a marriage that's become icy. "He tries to remember the last time they went on a date—a real date, without their son—white linen, lit candles, wine in goblets, their feet touching beneath the table—and can't. He tries to remember the last time he bought her jewelry or flowers. He tries to remember the last time she took him in her mouth."

For her part, Justin's wife, Karen—the book alternates between several characters' perspectives—finds her husband increasingly tame. She wishes he'd do manly things, "like lift weights and scream at football games and take a wrench to leaky faucets." He folds his socks into "tidy little balls" and can't work the grill.

All these simmering tensions come to a head when Justin agrees to a camping trip with his father near Echo Canyon, which is slated to be bulldozed by developers to make room for a big-money resort. Justin brings along his adolescent son, Graham, and before long he's watching nervously as his father teaches Graham to fire a gun, offers him sips of beer, and entertains him with bloody stories about Indian massacres. Whenever Justin raises an objection, his father simply dismisses him as too sensitive, too urbane, too overprotective. He might not utter the word "sissy," but the implication is clear enough. Justin mostly simmers and stews, feeling like a surly teenager in his father's presence.

Back at home, meanwhile, Karen takes her husband's absence as occasion to go on a date with a big-shot developer, a man unlike Justin in nearly every way: forward, aggressive, almost animalistic.

That predatory energy permeates the book. Karen is stalked by a disturbed Iraq War vet...