What happens when an unprincipled American tech magnate pits his wits against a group of environmental activists operating outside the law in a beautiful New Zealand locale?

Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton’s complex and expertly plotted new psychological thriller, Birnam Wood, examines the space in which the determination to survive and flourish is juxtaposed with ethical considerations.

When a massive landslide blocks access to the town of Thorndike, Mira Bunting – founder of guerrilla gardening collective Birnam Wood – sees an opportunity to commandeer a remote farm to plant crops for the group’s profit.

But when Mira reconnoitres the property, she is confronted by enigmatic billionaire Robert Lemoine, who claims he is purchasing the land from recently knighted pest control company owner Owen Darvish and his wife, Jill, and plans to build a doomsday bunker there.

Apparently impressed by the gardening group’s philosophy and ethos, Robert convinces Mira they can work together, but his charisma conceals his true intent and the depths to which he will plunge to achieve his desires.

With bursts of black humour and brutality amid the tension and fast-paced narrative, Catton has again demonstrated her command of the novel form, creating a cast of characters whose ambition and greed is only outweighed by their hypocrisy.

Reviewed by Maureen Eppen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eleanor Catton MNZM (born 24 September 1985) is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master’s degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master’s thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize (at age 28) and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter.

Visit Eleanor Catton’s website