A Must Read at The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, People, Vogue, Elle, Oprah Daily, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, USA Today, The BBC, The Guardian, The Times (London), Buzzfeed, Literary Hub, Kirkus Reviews, The Christian Science Monitor, Condé Nast Traveler, and more
Short-listed for the Giller Prize
Named a Best Young British Novelist by Granta
A Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
“A generational cri de coeur . . . A sophisticated page-turner . . . Birnam Wood nearly made me laugh with pleasure. The whole thing crackles . . . Greta Gerwig could film this novel, but so could Quentin Tarantino.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“Birnam Wood is terrific. As a multilayered, character-driven thriller, it’s as good as it gets. Ruth Rendell would have loved it. A beautifully textured work—what a treat.”
—Stephen King
“Whooshingly enjoyable . . . A witty literary thriller about the collision between eco-idealism and staggering wealth.”
—John Powers, NPR’s Fresh Air
“Grand, chilling . . . [Birnam Wood] grips you by the throat.”
—Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston Globe
“Gorgeous . . . [Catton is] a generational talent.”
—Oprah Daily
“Kaleidoscopic . . . A gripping thriller.”
—Bill Goldstein, NBC Weekend Today in New York
“A rollicking eco-thriller that juggles a lot of heady themes with a big plot and a heedless sense of play.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A sleek contemporary thriller . . . Delicious.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Sophisticated, stylish and searching . . . A full-on triumph from a generational talent.”
—Hamilton Cain, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Complex and often shocking . . . Profound.”
—B.D. McClay, The New Yorker
“The clash of principles with human nature is much at play in this excitingly complex novel . . . Breathtaking.”
—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
“An eco-thriller of grand psychological and social ambitions.”
—Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
“An ecological thriller, a treatise about surveillance technology, and a lush meditation on friendship and desire.”
—Emma Alpern, Vulture
“A rare accomplishment: an intelligent and elegant thriller that is also a damn fine read.”
—The Economist
“Delicious . . . At once a highly inventive spin on a morality tale and a logical interpretation of contemporary ecological doom.”
—Sloane Crosley, Departures
“[A] virtuoso performance: elaborately plotted, richly conceived, enormously readable.”
—Kevin Power, The Guardian
“Dark in both its outlook and omnipresent humor . . . A sincere interrogation of the relationship between morality and the ability to bring about positive change.”
—Lily Meyer, The Atlantic
“[A] page-turning thriller-slash-sneaky dystopian satire.”
—Patrick Rapa, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Will have you gnawing your knuckles.”
—Lisa Allardice, The Guardian
“Part eco-thriller, part scathing social satire, and entirely unputdownable.”
—Emma Cooke, Buzzfeed
★ 2022-12-24
An eco-activist group in New Zealand becomes entangled with an American billionaire in Catton's first novel since the Booker Prize–winning The Luminaries (2013).
Mira Bunting is the brainchild behind Birnam Wood, an “activist collective” of guerrilla gardeners who plant on unused land (sometimes with permission) and scavenge (or steal) materials to grow food. Mira is a “self-mythologising rebel” whose passions are tempered only somewhat by Shelley Noakes, who sees herself as Mira’s “sensible, dependable, predictable sidekick.” This role is starting to chafe—as is the lack of money—and Shelley plans to leave Birnam Wood. Just as Shelley’s about to cut ties, Mira makes an announcement: On a recent scouting trip near Korowai National Park, she located a farming property owned by a Kiwi farmer named Owen Darvish, temporarily abandoned due to a recent earthquake. This land is soon to transfer ownership from Darvish to an uber-rich tech CEO looking for a spot to doomstead. When the businessman, Robert Lemoine, catches Mira scouting on the land, he offers to bankroll the group to the tune of $100,000 since the act will help his bid for New Zealand citizenship. What could go wrong? Catton swirls among perspectives, including those of Mira, Shelley, Lemoine, Darvish and his wife, and a former Birnam Wood member called Tony, whose aspirations to fame look within reach as he suspects he’s got a major scoop concerning Lemoine’s real motives. In many ways, the novel is as saturated with moral scrutiny and propulsive plotting as 19th-century greats; it's a twisty thriller via Charles Dickens, only with drones. But where Dickens, say, revels in exposing moral bankruptcy, Catton is more interested in the ways everyone is cloudy-eyed with their own hubris in different ways. The result is a story that’s suspended on a tightrope just above nihilism, and readers will hold their breath until the last page to see whether Catton will fall.
This blistering look at the horrors of late capitalism manages to also be a wildly fun read.
