Column Book—Tails
Once There Were Wolves By Charlotte McConaghy
Book and Cocktail Club
“This is the thing, isn’t it? This is the fear they live with now. The children in us long for monsters to take forms we understand. They want to fear the wolves because they don’t want to fear each other.”
30 • Benicia Magazine
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Cooper Mickelson
Let me start by saying that Once There Were Wolves is at the top of my list for favorite reads of 2021, but this novel might not be for everyone. Charlotte McConaghy makes a sincere and earnest attempt at delivering important environmental messages through characters burdened with intense trauma and passion. This is not your average who-done-it thriller; Once There Were Wolves is an eco-thriller about rewilding the Highlands, and the environmentalist side of the plot takes up a lot of space in the story. If that sounds like something that would bore or annoy you, this might not be the book for you. Now, back to why I loved this novel. Inti Flynn is an Australian biologist leading a team of professionals tasked
with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Scottish Highlands. Inti hopes that through this rewilding attempt, she will heal not only the dying landscape but also her twin sister, Aggie. Once wild and spirited, Aggie is now mute and scarcely present in reality. Recent horrifying events involving Aggie’s violent husband have unmade her, reducing her to Inti’s “shadow sister.” Inti hasn’t escaped these events unchanged. Born with a neurological condition called mirror-touch synesthesia, her brain recreates the sensory experiences of any living creature. If she sees it, she feels it. This makes her extremely sensitive and empathetic. Transformed by the harm she’s witnessed to both her sister and the wild, Inti has become untrusting, closed off, and cold.
