Birnam Wood

I’ll start by saying this: I read the last 25 pages of this book while hiding out in the bathroom because I was supposed to be preparing for a get-together—that I was co-hosting.

Just to give you a sense of the explosive, irresistible conclusion that this book lays the groundwork for, from page 1. The character sketches got in my veins, from the members of the guerilla gardening group (the narrator makes connections between personal growth and growing plants that I still think about often) to the billionaire villain.

In fact, the latter is so meticulously drawn by… show more.

Eleanor Catton was a Booker prizewinner with The Luminaries, a Victorian mystery. This very different follow-up, also set in her native New Zealand, pitches a group of "guerilla" gardeners, led by the idealistic Mira, against Lemoine, a venture capitalist. Both, for very different reasons, have plans for a farm abandoned by its owner after a landslip.

When Tony Gallo, aspiring journalist and former member of Birnam Wood, learns of the deal Mira has struck with Lemoine, he's dismayed that she's sacrificed the group's ideals and begins a dangerous investigation into Lemoine's activities.

The plot becomes truly nail-biting as… show more.

It is a remarkably well-written and cold-hearted contemporary literary ecological thriller. I mean "cold-hearted" in the best possible way; Catton is a gifted enough novelist not to get too attached to her characters, and she does what she must to pull this tense, well-constructed, beautifully balanced story off.

Set at the edge of a national park in New Zealand and featuring a highly memorable tech-billionaire villain, Birnam Wood is a vivid, substantive page-turner that manages to be both brutal and fun. I couldn't put it down!

I’ve always been confused by the longstanding misconception that thrillers can’t be thematically complex and literary novels can’t be briskly plotted page turners. Birnam Wood is one of many excellent examples of a book that accomplishes both.

Catton’s novel covers activism, climate change, class struggle, idealism vs pragmatism, and a range of other related themes all while moving at a cracking pace and unleashing a thrilling, pulse-pounding plot. Some characters are lying by omission, others for the sake of preservation, others for the sake of self-interest. The result is a deliciously deceptive story where you aren’t sure who to trust… show more.