Wild Life

by Amanda Leduc, Elena Rey (Narrator), Sophie Amoss (Narrator)

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE

Amanda Leduc’s dazzling new novel follows two walking, talking hyenas as they interact with humans over decades. Blurring the line between human and animal, these strange messengers reveal what is possible when the cages that contain us are broken.

In 19th-century Scotland, young Josiah is banished by his father for seeing the divine in the animals around him and sent to Siberia with a small Christian mission to purge such nonsense from his soul. Miserably scrubbing the chapel floor one night, Josiah is visited by what he thinks is God in animal form. When his saviours, a hyena and her mate, rescue him from a natural disaster that kills the other missionaries and then bring him safely home, he founds a religion based on his belief that God granted speech to the hyenas as part of a divine plan to heal and exalt the human race.

The hyena pair, Barbara and Kendrith, aren't so sure that Josiah has it right. But with their beautiful strangeness, they utterly transform the people they encounter over succeeding generations. As Josiah's church gathers adherents, more and more animals start to speak to humans—from signing baby gorillas to seductive alligators. At first one or two rebellious pets make a break for freedom, but then comes a mass exodus of all animals held captive, forcing people to contend with a wildness in themselves they have spent millennia denying. The end of this remarkable fairytale is both joyful and devastating, completely dissolving the boundary between what's "human" and what's "animal."

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook, Canada, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Audible Audio

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Amanda Leduc is the author of the novels WILD LIFE (Random House Canada, 2025), THE CENTAUR'S WIFE (Random House Canada, 2021) and the non-fiction book DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE (Coach House Books, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction and longlisted for the 2020 Barbellion Prize. She is also the author of an earlier novel, THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN (ECW Press, 2013). She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with a very lovable dog named Sitka, who once literally tore apart and then peed on a manuscript. Because everyone's a critic, it seems.

Reviews

[Jesse On Youtube · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was soooo good & the audio was excellent, but the ending fizzled for me, personally. still wildly well written, plotted with intention, & i think this is a brilliant, talented author. lots of phenomenal themes & symbolism. df great for those like myselves who love talking animals in books/weird a$$ books & sweeping storytelling spanning decades!

[Bettys Book Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, wild is an understatement! I usually don’t read magical realism and I went in a little hesitant, but once I got a grasp of the story and the world, I was HOOKED and SHOOK.

The book opens in 1909 with a young boy named Josiah. He’s just lost his mother in a fire and his father has banished him because he thinks he is mentally ill. Josiah goes on a journey that leads him to two hyenas. Oh and they can talk!

I thought we would follow Josiah, but no, we follow the hyenas! They come into different characters' lives who need them the most over 100 years AND all the characters are interconnected.

Josiah is in the background tho…he starts a new cult/religion called the Ladder-Days that believes in communicating with animals.

The entire book is about communication and finding harmony between humans and animals and connecting with the animal inside of you. What if no one was ever caged?? There is indeed a zoo break!

The story is told in bite sized sections, some in interviews. It’s like a fantastical TRJ novel that will make you think.

Add this to your TBR if you are looking for something fresh and new.

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was easily my favourite book of the year. It's weird, it has so much heart, it tackles the idea of what it means to be human and what it means to be animal, and it has so many fantastic disabled characters. Most importantly, it's wild!

Read the full review on my blog!

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing, unusual story about animals talking, a religion growing up around this situation, and a family bound up in this for generations. Amanda Leduc’s gorgeous prose takes us through time, starting in 1901/1903, when Josiah is sent away by his father with missionaries, who travel to Siberia. Josiah has always been able to understand animals’ speech , and has been punished for years by his father for this ability.

The missionaries are unpleasant, and Josiah is mostly unhappy, till one day a pair of hyenas arrive and spirit him away, moments before a terrific cataclysm.

Eventually returning to his small town, Josiah starts his own religion that involves the hyenas, the idea of animals speaking, and supposed faith-based healing.

Josiah’s niece meets the hyenas, and is the next link on the chain of this family and its life changing interactions with animals. The author propels us forwards in time several times to meet different members of this family, and each time asks us to think about the way humans view the other animals we share the planet with, and how we resolve our animalness with out humanity.

This was weird, dark, but also hopeful. I liked the way the author kept the chapters short, the pace quick, and used different ways to tell the story: straight prose, research paper, interviews, and reports.

I was immediately drawn in at the start, and alternated between puzzled, curious, sad, angry, joyful and amused all the way to the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada (Adult) for this ARC in exchange for my review.

[Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Planet Earth had an existential crisis AND a PhD in Philosophy

[Mel Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part myth, part philosophical inquiry, part animals more human than humans, Wild Life tears through genre and form like zoo animals breaking out of their cages. The hyenas, in their descriptions, actions and in their sometimes stoned-faced stoicism are so relatable in their otherness, vulnerability and desire to appear “normal”. (Is it just me as a person with a disability that felt so understood?)

Leduc's prose is gorgeous. Just when you're floating in lyrical, mind-expanding thought, she’ll shatter it with a rupture of random profanity. Brilliant like Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie but lighter in the right way: even more fun, more now and with the softer power of the female narrative.

The "Nautilus Express" and "Kathryn at the Zoo" chapters were my favourites but they are all splendid.

This book is weird in the very best ways, like hanging out with your best friend, planning your next shenanigan before you must return to adulting.

[Krissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review

This novel is very hard to talk about as it truly felt like a fever dream for most of the time. It explores so man philosophical and moral themes, and was truly too smart for me. I did enjoy myself in this parable like story, and I always love a book that explores a cult. I think the character work in this one was so interesting and I really grew to love and relate to them. I truly loved the exploration of what it means to be human and what it means to be an animal and are they one in the same or different in the traditional and nontraditional lense. I think the author is so smart and I am very interested to read more by them.

[Anuja Varghese · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly wild and magical ride of a book! With a memorable cast of interconnected characters (including a pair of talking hyenas!), an underwater train, and a strange cult gathering followers, this is a book that weaves together its stories and voices into something altogether unexpected. Audacious, ambitious, and vividly imagined, Wild Life grapples with questions about what it means to be whole and what it means to be human. A modern fairytale that proves again why Leduc is a master storyteller and one of the best Canadian writers today.

[Lolz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes this story was wild. I was kind of thrown off by the religious tones at the beginning and that whole part raised way more questions than answers, but glad I stuck with the book because the middle and ending were fantastic.

[David]

Profoundly fascinating, displaying Leduc's usual widely ranging imagination, inventiveness, openness to human difference, and passion for story. It cannot be approached with a literal mind.

[JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books this year. Inventive and engaging. So weird and creative. Great storytelling and I absolutely loved it

[Denae · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, much more than I actually did. The synopsis reminded of Oryx and Crake in some aspects. However, the threads throughout the plot really suffered from how the book jumps through time and space. I don’t want to be spoon fed, but a family tree would’ve been a helpful inclusion to appreciate Leduc’s narrative arcs. I also struggled to feel much connection with the characters in such brief vignettes, save for Barbara, Kendrith, and Lizzie. The hyenas are true protagonists but I still feel a little in the dark about their full story.

What did really stick with me is the uniqueness of her story telling. While an academic paper smack dab in the middle of a book is odd, it helped with the world building and how the LDs had grown over the century. The Prophet’s Pamphlet was similar. There certainly weren’t any moments where I wasn’t incredibly curious to see what came next.

Leduc’s exploration of disability was also a highlight of the book. However, I still felt like her primary goal of highlighting disability was undercut by the transformation of characters into animals. If the point is the celebrate/acknowledge disabilities as a beautiful uniqueness, why circumvent that by emphasizing “becoming”?

This was a fantastic idea with a unique but ultimately mediocre execution.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought for sure I wasn't going to like this book but it was a Giller Prize nominee so I gave it a try anyway. I don't usually like stories where animals can talk, but maybe the difference is that these animals can think, and they are smart. I am inclined toward thinking we should be kinder to all animals, so this story kinda appealed to me from that perspective. And I liked the multi-generaltional aspect of it as well.

[Alberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s weird but in the best way possible. I loved the constant changing of views and how, like the people in the story, you’re never 100% sure what’s the truth.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I freaking loved this, so weird so good

[Rebekah Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly one of the strangest books I've read but has an amazing message, beautiful prose and important representation.

[Jan Boomhouwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
**A spellbinding tale of myth, meaning, and the magic of being alive**

*Wild Life* by Amanda Leduc is a mesmerizing fantasy novel that blends fairy tale motifs with deep philosophical questions in the most unexpected and exhilarating ways. From its explosive beginning—literally, with the mysterious Tunguska event—to its lush world of talking hyena sages and shapeshifting truths, this book completely swept me away.

What I loved most was how Leduc weaves together threads of fairy tale, philosophy and science fiction to explore what it means to be human, animal, and conscious. The writing is lyrical and layered, and each chapter felt like its own myth, building into a narrative that’s both timeless and urgent.

The talking hyenas are an inspired touch—wise, strange, and full of questions that force both the characters and readers to reflect on the boundaries between instinct and intellect, self and other. The animal characters are essential voices in a story that grapples with big, beautiful questions.

If you're looking for a fantasy novel that challenges, enchants, and stays with you long after the last page, *Wild Life* is an absolute must-read. Amanda Leduc has crafted something singular and unforgettable.

[Lauren Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you no doubt know if you follow my reviews on here, lol, I don’t usually go in for magic realism, but Amanda writes books that are both magical and real, impossible, and yet make perfect sense. Sparkling prose on a line level, generational story arcs, and compelling rich characters.

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amanda Leduc’s WILD LIFE is a novel that will be experienced differently by every reader. We're traveling on this planet together, but we’re not walking the same path. we each have views about grief, loss and our unique experiences dictate our choices, and those are not always relatable or translatable. I think this is the book's most remarkable achievement: that it will say something different to each of us.

It opens in 1908, as young Josiah – the novel’s prophet, and leader of the cultist “religious” Ladder-Days – speaks to animals and suffers two tragic losses.

As the novel moves forward to 2041, the two constants are Bar and Kendrith, two hyenas, who, despite the species’ tendencies have become soul mates. They are Josiah’s feral disciples until they realize they are nothing more than proof for his pilgrims, plot points on his own maniacal path. As the hyenas follow the wind they encounter a signing gorilla and her pregnant caretaker, a Customer Engagement Representative on a seafaring train; a grieving widow, a deaf woman escaping an abusive partner; and a one-armed cellist (who owns a cello that plays itself). The characters are all connected in some way – some descendants of Bar and Kendrith’s original human connection – and there is a perfectly placed academic paper that fills in blanks about the thriving Ladder-Days cult that surges in popularity as time goes by. This academic paper chapter is a stroke of brilliance, as is the allusion to the tree from which the cello was born.

What is “wild” about the hyenas is that they accept their tendencies. Even as they’re learning what it means to be human, they are more human, offering Leduc’s truth bombs like, “Grief…like the opposite of hope.” and “We–– lost something. And we became different in the world after that.” Bar and Kendrith are called to help others who are struggling to be different in the world, to understand that it is the grief, the loss, the pain, the differences, that makes us all more “wild,” more human.
Leduc has a knack for delivering brilliant truths inside the mythological, and giving us the painfully real in the form of a fairy tale. WILD LIFE is all that and more. It is the saga unfolding all around us and if we open our hearts and minds, we will find ourselves here, our whole bodies, our whole selves – wholly perfect and wholly wild.

[Chels Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild Thing by Amanda Leduc

Is WILD!!

Welcome to the world of buying a book for the vibes. And gosh, does it work. What hooked me browsing @pulpbooksmtl was the cover and the blurb. Well really the words Josiah, Scotland, banished, Siberia, missionaries, talking hyenas, exalt humans.

In essence we follow the makings of a modern day religion (cult) in a world much like our own but different somehow. Josiah is lost, then found and somewhere along the way seems to have the answers as a modern prophet with the hyenas proof of his greatness. The hyenas don’t think Josiah got it right. And so we move from Josiah to someone else, then they get it not so right, again and again the cycle repeats. Almost like the Jewish bible following a lineage

And as such we begin to see a world that has much to comment about our own. Even if it doesn’t all make sense, even if there are trains crossing the Atlantic. Even if there are hyenas that look like hyenas but are also people in fur coats who have paws and like shortbread.

The thing that makes this novel so readable, is the different literary styles. (I know NOT the talking Hyenas and their pseudopenises? Crazy!). We have a classic novel with world building liner, maybe one or two foreshadowing, then jump to forward and back flashes piecing together as we go along, to new articles, pamphlets, academic journals, interviews, police transcripts etc etc. To me it reads like a mix of Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Somethings get built on from other sections, somethings get a random tangent like the Orca, just when you start to think “hey what about the aquatic zoos?”

This novel is for anyone that like weird fiction or magical realism, Canadian novels, have an odd fascination with religion/ cults.

[Nafisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

My first introduction to Leduc was through her nonfiction title, Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space. Wild Life feels like her answer to how, among other things, the disabled or othered body can be a site of magic and transformation in fiction. But this wasn't what I thought this book would be about when I picked it up. The blurb tells us that this story centers around Josiah, a young man in 19th century Scotland who has been sent away by his puritanical father to a Christian mission in Siberia as a result of his affinity with animals. There, Josiah is saved by two talking hyenas, and ends up founding a religion.

This book turns out to be an interconnected polyvocal narrative across time and space. The tone of the chapters veer between realistic to allegorical, featuring beanstalks, transfiguration, resurrection, and, of course, talking animals, like our two main characters: the hyenas, Bar and Kendrith. This fabulism works incredibly well all throughout and at no point in the book did I feel disengaged. Leduc plays with formatting as well, with some chapters being interview transcripts, excerpts of books, or an initial draft of a graduate level paper replete with the supervisor's comments. I was rapt, to say the least. Another major score for Can Lit.

[Katie P · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review is going to be a grain-of-salt review; meaning this was my experience but shouldn't reflect the overall book itself

First: I did the audiobook. It was a FULL cast, and everyone did a really good job.

Second: It's super long at 11 hrs run time. I nearly DNF'd around the 6-hour mark, but eventually pushed on. [DNF would have been midway through the research paper with commentary. While there were different voices for the author and the advisor, I still think my brain would have had a better time being able to physically read it]

I love books with this type of premise - an overlap of animals with human traits and humans with animal traits - especially with multiple POVs (stories, almost) and ranging over centuries. But because I listened in small bits over a long period of time, it didn't hit the way I knew it was supposed to. I was forgetting the original stories and characters and mixing up the rumors and the experiences.

I did love how every story highlighted or featured a minor character from the story before it. And I would die for Barbara the hyena.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4/5
Spice: Not sure how to answer this - there is quite a bit of animal sex...

I had to do CAWPILE to get a rating for this one because...what the hell did I just read? The writing was really beautiful. I enjoyed Leduc's turns of phrase quite a bit. The story was absolutely banana pants. It was kind of Cloud Atlas-y in the sense that it follows lots of stories across hundreds of years but they are all somehow interconnected. It asks lots of questions about what it means to be human and who deserves to be treated as such. It felt a bit scattered sometimes, which made me feel a bit scattered in the reading. I was totally intrigued by what was going on in the world that Leduc was creating. It was strange and creepy and fantastic. There's a cult and talking animals...I think I liked the book? I mean, if CAWPILE got it to a 4, I obviously liked things about it...I just also don't know how I feel about it.

[Mike Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Randomhouse Canada for the advance copy of this book.
This was a weird and “wild” book.
It did not totally work for me, but I kept reading.
Right from the start, talking hyenas who walked on two feet, communicating with humans, prophets, a lot going on.
I am sure there are lots of messages, particularly how humans treat animals, zoo keeping, the loss of habitats and the inevitable interactions between humans and animals.
However, this was a bit too out there for me.

[Pegi Eyers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for a deep dive into authentic animism, but the opening themes of evangelical obsession and massive transportation technology were too far removed from a pre-colonial environment that could be conducive to human-animal interactions. Also the hyenas did not ring true - I did not expect so much anthropomorphism. The theme of the book would be fascinating to develop, if it was based on an in-depth understanding of animism and/or ancestral knowledge, which is the way interspecies communication (and shapeshifting) works in the natural world.

[Gemington · Rating 3 out of 5]

CW: human control of animals, captivity, lack of agency, ableism, domestic violence, spousal abuse

A weird and wonderful tale of Mormons and talking hyenas who listen to the wind and help a select few animals and people on their journey. Lots of discussion of hyena sex and lots of questions intentionally left unanswered. It was hard to know if we were meant to empathize with the religious folks at first but this criticism of faith seems largely connected to definitions of who and what counts and deserves agency as well as who and what deserves veneration. A deeply weird and engrossing book.

[Katie Skyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fever dream with a lot to say.

It felt messy and repetitive. There are parts I enjoyed, but parts that felt poorly researched.

Kathryn in her own story seemed too empathetic for the person she was in her daughter's.

If you have a baby in Canada, you are actually required to have a follow-up within a week or so. That's really normal despite what this book suggests. Also, at least in my experience, the results of the hearing test are shared immediately.

Ultimately, it was interesting, but the pursuit of message outweighs the pleasure of plot.

[Katherine Stoltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the concept of humans transforming into a higher form (but not quite sure how or what) and animals transforming into their version of a higher form. I always enjoy multiple intertwined plot lines. I did find this novel lacking in a few ways. I was disappointed by the ending. I did not enjoy the midsection of the thesis. I would have liked more closure on what happened to Josiah. I just needed more development.

[Taryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this book, it was exactly what I was craving. Weird, fun, snappy, sad, frank. Pokes fun at human hubris, makes it obvious how silly we are to see ourselves as separate from the animal kingdom. I especially liked that it centers disabled characters whom I think all added their own flavor of "what it means to be human" to the pot. You come away with a renewed sense of expansive appreciation for life, or at least I did.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful and thought provoking books I’ve ever read. This book takes you through centuries of story telling through several formats and I had no idea ever what was coming next. It is a beautiful ode to the natural world and all who feel called to it. It isn’t scared to deal with darkness and grief yet makes you feel warm and fuzzy in other parts. Absolutely adored this book and will be recommending it to anyone who will listen.