Wild Mab

"How can a complete stranger know you better than the people you've known your entire life?" Lance Hendricks is homeward bound, four hundred highway miles from the best night of his life. There's an epic graduation party brewing, his girlfriend will be there, and they've got a private bedroom with their names on it. When his '93 Buick breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Lance is sure he'll be back on the road in no time. After all, he's the high school valedictorian. First chair trumpet player. Scholarship winner. Nothing can stop Lance Hendricks. But afternoon turns to night, and Lance ends up stranded at the Trainsong Motel. The place feels ominous, even before there's a terrible car wreck outside his room. When Lance rushes out to help, the townies take notice. They call him Wildman, and an intriguing local girl asks him to join in their nighttime adventures. He begins to live up to his new name. As one day blurs into the next, Lance finds himself in a bar fight, jumping a train, avoiding the police. Drifting farther from home and closer to a girl who makes him feel a way he's never felt before—like himself. This debut novel by a remarkable new talent explores the relationship between identity and place, the power of being seen, and the speed at which a well-planned life can change forever.

Wild Man from Borneo offers the first comprehensive history of the human-orangutan encounter. Arguably the most humanlike of all the great apes, particularly in intelligence and behavior, the orangutan has been cherished, used, and abused ever since it was first brought to the attention of Europeans in the seventeenth century. The red ape has engaged the interest of scientists, philosophers, artists, and the public at large in a bewildering array of guises that have by no means been exclusively zoological or ecological. One reason for such a long-term engagement with a being found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra is that, like its fellow great apes, the orangutan stands on that most uncomfortable dividing line between human and animal, existing, for us, on what has been called “the dangerous edge of the garden of nature.” Beginning with the scientific discovery of the red ape more than three hundred years ago, this work goes on to examine the ways in which its human attributes have been both recognized and denied in science, philosophy, travel literature, popular science, literature, theatre, museums, and film. The authors offer a provocative analysis of the origin of the name “orangutan,” trace how the ape has been recruited to arguments on topics as diverse as slavery and rape, and outline the history of attempts to save the animal from extinction. Today, while human populations increase exponentially, that of the orangutan is in dangerous decline. The remaining “wild men of Borneo” are under increasing threat from mining interests, logging, human population expansion, and the widespread destruction of forests. The authors hope that this history will, by adding to our knowledge of this fascinating being, assist in some small way in their preservation.

Colin Riordan came to Virgin River to recuperate from a horrific helicopter crash, the scars of which he bears inside and out. His family is wonderfully supportive, but it's his art that truly soothes his troubled soul. Stung personally and professionally by an ill-advised affair, PR guru Jillian Matlock has rented an old Victorian with a promising garden in Virgin River. She's looking forward to cultivating something other than a corporate brand. Both are looking to simplify, not complicate, their lives, but when Jillian finds Colin at his easel in her yard, there's an instant connection. And in Virgin River, sometimes love is the simplest choice of all….

Working with the image of the Indian shaman as Wild Man, Taussig reveals not the magic of the shaman but that of the politicizing fictions creating the effect of the real. "This extraordinary book . . . will encourage ever more critical and creative explorations."—Fernando Coronil, [I]American Journal of Sociology[/I] "Taussig has brought a formidable collection of data from arcane literary, journalistic, and biographical sources to bear on . . . questions of evil, torture, and politically institutionalized hatred and terror. His intent is laudable, and much of the book is brilliant, both in its discovery of how particular people perpetrated evil and others interpreted it."—Stehen G. Bunker, Social Science Quarterly

Part autobiographical journal, part social-historical novel, Wild Man tracks Tobias Schneebaum's fascinating and almost epic life story, from his earliest contemplation of homoerotic desire through his life in Peru, Borneo, and beyond. A young man from New York, Schneebaum "disappeared" in 1955 on the eastern slopes of the Andes. He was, in actuality, living for more than a year among the remote Harakhambut people, discovering a way of being that was strange, primitive, and powerfully attractive to him. This longing to find the "wild man" in other cultures—and in himself—eventually led him on an odyssey through South America, India, Tibet, Africa, Borneo, New Guinea, and Southeast Asia. He lived among isolated forest peoples, including headhunters and cannibals, in regions where few, if any, white men had ever been.

She's about to walk on the wild side . . . While filling the display case in her bakery, the bell over the door sounds and Tessa O'Hara looks up to see the man of her dreams. Within thirty seconds he asks her out for a beer. But after four months of dating, she discovers he's an undercover DEA agent-and he's investigating her possible role in her ex-husband's drug business. For Tess, this means their relationship is over. Brock disagrees. He's committed to his anti-drug mission, but he's fallen in love with the beautiful woman who's as sweet as her cupcakes-and he'll do anything to win her back. Standing between Tess and Brock are their own exes, one of them a drug lord who's determined to get what he wants. Now as danger threatens, can Brock break the rules he's lived by and let loose his wild side to protect the woman he loves? 125,000 words

The award-winning novel that’s “a foreboding, compelling story of humanity’s uneasy relationship with nature and with each other . . . a gripping read” (St.Louis Post-Dispatch). It has been twenty years since Lucie Bowen left the islands—when the May Day Quake shattered thousands of lives; when Lucie’s father disappeared in an explosion at the Marrow Island oil refinery, a tragedy that destroyed the island’s ecosystem; and when Lucie and her best friend, Katie, were just Puget Sound children hoping to survive. Now, Katie writes with strange and miraculous news. Marrow Island is no longer uninhabitable and no longer abandoned. She is part of a community that has managed to conjure life again from Marrow’s soil. Lucie returns. Her journalist instincts tell her there’s more to this mysterious “Colony” and their charismatic leader—a former nun with an all-consuming plan—than its members want her to know. As she uncovers their secrets, will Lucie endanger more than their mission? And what price will she pay for the truth? “Eerie and intriguing . . . captivates in the first few pages and delivers a gripping, compelling story throughout.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Smith’s excellent command of language gives life to arresting characters and their creepy surroundings, keeping the suspense in this dark environmental thriller running high.”—Elle “This alluring novel explores the darkness of love, how it can cajole you into danger or tip your actions toward cruelty. Clean but intoxicating writing . . . Ambitious.”—The New York Times Book Review “Transporting.”—Vanity Fair “Beautifully wrought.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “Engrossing and atmospheric, a thorny meditation on environmental responsibility with a big haunted heart.”—Miami Herald