The Hunter - Softcover

Leigh, Julia

3.52

1,285 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142000027 ISBN 13: 9780142000021

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2001

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Now a major motion picture starring William Dafoe

A man identified only as “M” is hired by a multinational biotech company to locate and hunt down the last known Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. Beginning at a remote house on the fringe of a vast wilderness, M embarks on a fateful course deep into the forest and an ancient world of silence and stillness. The Hunter is a haunting adventure tale of obsession and redemption, worthy of Conrad or Melville, where a business proposition takes on mythic aspects, as the quest for an extinct animal becomes a search not for ultimate profit but for the essence of life that technology has all but crushed.

“Impressive.”—The New York Times Book Review

"Strong and Hypnotic."— Don DeLillo

“[Leigh’s] narration is as clear-eyed and cold-blooded as her hero.”—The New Yorker

“A memorable debut, one full of many rewards and a subtle, precise beauty.”—San Francisco Chronicle

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About the Author:

Julia Leigh is the author of two internationally acclaimed novels, THE HUNTER (1999) and DISQUIET (2008). Her film SLEEPING BEAUTY was selected for Competition at the Festival de Cannes 2011. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

From Publishers Weekly:

Already a hit in Australia, Leigh's flawed but exciting debut describes the deadly search for the fabled, and perhaps extinct, Tasmanian tiger, aka the thylacine. A mysterious man who is identified to the reader only as M assumes the identity of "Martin David, naturalist" and arrives at the filthy, disheveled house of depressed Lucy Armstrong, whose husband, Jarrah, a naturalist and bioethics expert, recently disappeared on the plateau. Lucy's home becomes the base for M's treks into the wilderness, ostensibly to study the habits of Tasmanian devils. In fact, and in secret, M works for a biotech company. His mission: to secure genetic material from what may be the world's last remaining thylacine, reportedly sighted on the plateau. M must hide his true occupation from Lucy and her lonely children, Sass and Bike, as well as from the National Parks researchers and the suspicious local townspeople. Sydney-based Leigh shifts ably between M's laconic narration and third-person storytelling. With the exception of a superfluous (and clumsily handled) romantic subplot, the novel's events are compelling, drawing the reader deep into M's inner jungle. Leigh is most effective when writing in M's voice, exploring his relationship to the wilderness, his tracking expertise and his ability "to think like a true and worthy predator." Fans of Peter Matthiessen will find Leigh darker and sometimes less ambitious, but effective in similar ways, as M's obsession with the hunt drives this moody work by a gifted new author to its chilling conclusion. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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