Julia Elliott's debut collection is aptly named; these short stories are undoubtedly wild. A woman attends a caveman-themed weight-loss camp, only to discover that a pack of Neanderthals takes the rumor of caveman cannibalism seriously; a young girl is caught up in the chaotic rants and fortune-telling of her friends' dying grandmother; a neighborhood boy transforms himself into a wolfman, wearing a mask and howling at the sky every full moon. Elliott dives into this wildness with abandon, never afraid to push the limits of reality in order to make us think, really, about the crazy world in which we live.
In "The Love Machine," a scientist uploads information about gender, love and romance to an androgynous robot, leaving readers to think more deeply not only about artificial intelligence but also the intersection of "love, knowledge, language and consciousness." In "LIMBs," an elderly woman is undergoing experimental new treatments for dementia at her nursing home, and the success of the treatments forces everyone, from the woman's doctors to Elliott's readers, to consider the role of memory in our identity.
Some of the stories in this collection border on the fantastical, while others, like "LIMBs," are more grounded; some are beautiful while others are slightly horrific. All 12 pieces are ultimately a testament to Elliott's skills with language, as she tames the words of The Wilds into enticing and affecting stories about the everyday and the extraordinary. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm