Synopsis:
I have grown hungry. Grief no longer nourishes me. I will eat the wild.
Whisper your prayers, light your candles, watch your steps, cherish your life, and— most importantly— never let the spirits hear your name.
These were his mother’s rules before she disappeared. And Kazuki followed them, even when his father was ripped apart by a malevolent spirit. When he decides to go in search of his mother, an encounter with a corrupted bear leaves him weak, wounded, and worst of all, tainted.
With her rules and his father’s sword, he ventures north into the unknown. Demons, spirits, and gods all haunt his steps, and the closer he gets to the truth, the further from himself he becomes. His name forgotten.
Can he find his mother, or will the wild consume him?
Review:
He Who Ate the Wild by G.J. Terral is a bold and fearless exploration of family, identity, and survival, but does Terral bite off more than he can chew with his Japanese-inspired tale?
I’ve read earlier works by Terral and within just a few pages of He Who Ate the Wild, I could see the growth he’s made as a writer. Passages flowed and his prose connected in ways it hasn’t always before. The Miyazaki comparison is apt — I felt the same loss of innocence I did when I watched Spirited Away for the first time and marveled at nature just like with Princess Mononoke.
In many ways, He Who Ate the Wild comes across to me as an allegory — almost a meta-commentary — of the writing experience.
Let me explain. Kazuki is our protagonist, but he is lost. Plagued by the death of his father and the disappearance of his mother. He ventures out into the world to search for his mother — a sense of familiarity when all is ripped away from him. But Kazuki loses his own identity — his name — in the process. He works to better himself, fitting in with those who know how to fight for what’s good, honing his skills by rejection and pain.
The writing process can be much the same. Authors are told to write what they know. But, when that writing isn’t widely lauded and read, it can feel like your own identity is taken away from you. Many authors have benefitted from writing groups, whether in person, or today, online. Reading good writing and surrounding yourself with other good writers hones your own craft until you are ready to put your writing out there again for everyone to read.
Later in Terral’s book, Ku (what Kazuki names himself while he has forgotten his name), and his friends are confronted by guns. Those who have them say they are no different than their swords or bows and arrows, but for Ku’s group who flit in and out of nature, the nature of the guns feels wrong. Alien. They feel like a shortcut to solving problems that should take hard work and perseverance to solve. And those shortcuts are often ill-conceived and thought-out. Perhaps…a little bit like A.I.
In the end, you could easily make the argument that Terral is showcasing the nature vs. technology debate or many other dichotomies, but spending so much time in and around authors, the allegory feels very appropriate here as well.
In the end, I feel Terral took a very appropriate bite of the material with He Who Ate the Wild and I count this book as a success. There are some genuine moments in He Who Ate the Wild that just sing and show just how much G.J. Terral is growing as an author and I look forward to more from him down the road.
He Who Ate the Wild will be released on June 26, 2026.
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