The Wild Angel [Hardcover]

aharlib@worldnet.att.net The Wild Angel by Pat Murphy (Tor Books, NY, Aug. 2000, $23.95, hardcover, ISBN#: 0-312-86626-7). Pat Murphy's latest novel The Wild Angel, (also credited as by Mary Maxwell by Max Meriwell in a playful authorial pseudonymous experiment), is the second in a trio of tales paying homage to great classics of imaginative fiction. The first, 'There and Back Again', was a loving pastiche of Tolkien's The Hobbit re-worked as a space opera. This one is faithful to the spirit of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan tales and Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book Mowgli stories with a hefty nod to Mark Twain who is quoted in every epigraph for each chapter. The resulting yarn, a delightful cross-genre mix with elements of mystery, western and fantasy/adventure infused with a feminist sensibility, is also a wolf-girl saga that nicely complements the entirely independent Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles (1996). In Gold Rush California (1850), hopeful settlers Rachel and William McKenzie have their dreams cut short when they are murdered by the ruthless robber Jasper Davis in their camp not far from the boomtown of Selby. Their 3 year old daughter Sarah, by hiding in a cave, avoids death, finding her survival depends upon the wolf pack led by the she-wolf Wauna that adopts her. Like her special wolf-companion Beka, one of Wauna's offspring, Sarah grows wild, strong, healthy and wary of humans for many years until a chance encounter and resulting friendship with Malila, a young Miwok Indian woman and shaman who shows her that not all people are to be feared.

Meanwhile, evidence of the crime is discovered by writer/artist Max Philips, but the perpetrator remains unknown. Max, loving to camp and sketch in this wilderness area, as the years pass, occassionally glimpses Sarah, who is becoming known as the Wild Angel for her beauty, spectacular red hair and kindness to distressed travelers. Gradually Max gains Sarah's trust and

friendship for he has been haunted by her ever since the day he discovered her parent's bodies but couldn't find their little girl. He also keeps this odd friend of his secret, fearing that the murderer of Sarah's parents is still nearby which indeed he is, for Jasper Davis has been buying respectability with the proceeds of his crimes, but never forgetting that Sarah witnessed his foul deed. In the outlandish tradition of the pulpy adventure novels on which this book draws inspiration, Sarah eventually joins a circus, meets her long-lost aunt from back east and confronts Jasper Davis in a predictable but undeniably exciting and suspenseful climax. Pat Murphy's crisp, concise prose style and authorial skill in assembling the elements of her mythical novel evokes such an appropriate atmosphere that suspension of disbelief comes effortlessly and the swift-paced narrative sucks the reader right in. The Wild Angel also features vivid depictions of Gold Rush California that ring true and contains graphic descriptions of the 'nature red in tooth and claw' struggle for survival that is life in a pack of wolves as well as of the loving companionship of which these noble animals are capable. A thoughtful subtext contrasting the wilderness and Native American lifestyles in balance with the forces of nature with the exploitation of and damage to the land caused by the Anglo-Americam settlers and miners adds depth to the story without preachiness--not spoiling the sheer fun of this yarn with its lovable protagonists and compelling, fanciful and ultimately heartwarming plot. In the Afterword, Murphy discusses how the layers of pseudonyms influenced her writing and how they will help to tie together 'There and Back Again', this book, and the next one. Meanwhile, allow Sarah, the Wild Angel---a woman who truly runs with the wolves in every sense of those words, to run away with your heart and have a ripsnorting romp of a read while doing so!

Pat Murphy continues the experiment begun with the delightful THERE AND BACK AGAIN, this time adopting her psuedonym's (Max Merriwell) psuedonym (Mary Maxwell) to provide a fresh take on the myth of the feral child, a premise as old as Romulus and Remus, familiar to afficionados of literature and adventure fiction alike. Whether she herself feels this experiment has been successful is for her to say. However, she certainly SEEMS to be having fun.

The book's obvious model is Burroughs' TARZAN OF THE APES, although one can sense echoes of books like Kipling's THE JUNGLE BOOK, Hudson's GREEN MANSIONS, and even Jane Auel's CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR . It tells the story of young Sarah MacKenzie, who, surviving an attack on her family that leaves her parents dead, is adopted by a wolf pack which makes its home in the California woods. Growing to young adulthood, Sarah becomes a legend to both her pack and the denizens of California, acting as saviour for many endangered travelers. Along the way, Sarah is befriended by the journalist/artist Max Phillips, who helps her seek her roots. But, even as she does so, she is threatened by one of the men who killed her parents, who has since become a pillar of the community in a nearby Gold Rush town.

Wild Angel is a celebration of story itself--Murphy, who, by quoting Twain in the epigram to the first chapter ("Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attmepting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."), makes her intentions quite clear, acknowledges as much in her afterword. Writing the book seems to have reconnected her to the love of fiction which sparked her love of writing fiction in the first place, opening her mind to the possibilities of fiction. As with so many writers, it's hard to know for sure exactly "who" is writing these books, the "real" writer, or the psuedonyms, which seem to have freed her to take her fiction in new directions. Witness her own remarks, which echo those of writers like Stephen King, Donald Westlake and Ed McBain in discussing their own pen names:

"As a writer known for my feminist leanings, the doubly layered psuedonym added an interesting aspect to the writing of this novel. Throughout the writing of Wild Angel, I was aware that i was a woman, writing as a man, who was writing as a woman. Twisted and confusing, I know, but necessary in a strange way. Max has the confidence to believe that anything he writes is wonderful, Mary shares that confidence--but modifies the subject matter to match a woman's experience."

She goes on to state that :

"I have created psuedonyms who have become characters who have been writing books that I enjoy--but wouldn't have been written without them. It has been a strange and wonderful experience."

Indeed, Murphy has grown increasingly playful as her experiment progresses, even providing afterwords from both Mary and Max. Further evidence of this playfullness is evident is her use of Gitana, the Gandalf stand-in from THERE AND BACK AGAIN, in WILD ANGEL, and in the appearances of Pinkerton operative "Patrick Murphy" and a young Mark Twain late in the story.

WILD ANGEL is, like its predecessor, a simple pleasure, a book that weds the humor and magic of a folk tale with a very modern feel for the psychological dynamics between men and women, exploring the fine line between civilization and savagery. It has been crafted and executed with skill, intelligence and wit, radiating Murphy's evident love of genre fiction, a love which, as evidenced by the success of this narrative, has been requited.

This was a book I was really saddened to finish. I truly hated to say goodbye to Sarah McKensie, the main character of the novel, who was transformed by the skillful writing of Pat Murphy into someone I soon grew to deeply like and long to know.

"Wild Angel" tells the tale of a young girl who, after watching her parents gunned down at age three, is raised by wolves and becomes a strong willed and strong muscled heroic savage. Murphy's novel is unabashedly based on the great works of pulp fiction, particularly the Tarzan series, and as such doesn't pretend to be a great classic of social and intellectual literature. Who cares? Possibly because of that, it was one of the most wonderfully enjoyable reads I've experienced in a very, very long time.

Despite the style of writing it was based on, the novel often rose above the level of pulp fiction through Murphy's eye for fine detail. As someone who knows a bit about wolves, I can say that the members of Sarah's non-human family behaved very realistically, and it is clear that Murphy did her research on the biology and behavior of wild canines before writing this volume. (And although exceedingly rare, there have been several well documented cases of abandoned children being raised by non-human surrogate parents. A well-known example is Kamala and Amala, two young girls discovered living with wolves in 1920 near Midnapore, India.) Likewise, so is the Wild West portrayed realistically. Well, yeah, there were some fudges of historical facts here and there, but the feel and flavor of life during those times was played in a caring, painstaking way that made suspension of disbelief extremely easy throughout the story's 180 pages.

I soon became totally entwined in Sarah's life and joyfully became party to her experiences. I unexpectedly found myself crying as she cried during a particularly mournful scene in the middle of the book. And by the end, I was howling with her in pleasure. After the book came to a close, I found myself restlessly looking around the four walls of my room, and I realized I was being drawn toward the open spaces, where I drove and, in a midst of trees, away from all other people, I howled again, this time in sadness for the fact that I would never hear of Sarah again.

Yeah, the book was that good.

My main wish at the end was that it was like the Tarzan books in another way - that Sarah's story also stretched across 24 novels, which would mean I could possible have another 23 chances to read of her life's saga.

Goodbye, Sarah McKensie. You won't soon be forgotten. And thank you, Pat Murphy, for another fine piece of writing.