06/01/2023
In this latest from Berlin Prize winner Wray (Godsend), three heavy-metal fans become fast friends in a Florida high school in the late 1980s. Kira is a lifelong Floridian, Kip has moved in with his grandmother after being abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, and Leslie is a gay Black man adopted by a white family. After graduating, the three head to Los Angeles, where Kip writes for music publications, Kira works at a club frequented by metal bands, and Leslie insinuates himself in the metal scene before overdosing and returning to Florida. Ultimately, Kip and Kira become lovers and take an extended trip to Europe until she comes under the spell of a Norwegian metal band and the death cult around them and leaves him to join them in Norway. Back in LA a few years later, Kip receives a visit from Interpol, who are investigating Kira's disappearance. He reunites with Leslie, and the pair embark on a dangerous trip deep into the Norwegian forest to search for Kira—who may or may not still be alive. VERDICT Wray deftly explores late adolescence with its roller-coaster intensity of friendship and the music that binds everything together, in this case heavy metal and its mythological fantasies, which here become all too darkly real.—Lawrence Rungren
2023-03-11
Three misfits find their friendship tested in the 1980s and '90s metal scenes.
Wray’s sixth novel centers on Kip, a White kid who, in 1987, is 16 and has moved from his broken home in Tallahassee, Florida, to live with his grandmother on the state’s Gulf Coast. Soon he befriends Leslie, a Black bisexual man with a passion for heavy metal, and Kira, a hard-nosed young White woman for whom metal concerts are an escape hatch from her impoverished, abusive home. The bands they love—“downright life-affirming in their bleakness”—become important enough to build a life around in the years to come. In time they head for LA just as its glam-metal scene has reached its zenith. (In one funny scene, Kip lectures Mötley Crüe’s inebriated lead singer about his artistic failures.) Kip becomes an in-demand writer for metal magazines, and Kira tends bar at a popular club, but Leslie starts to fall through the cracks and uses heroin. And once Kira grows entangled in the Norwegian black metal scene, where rumors of church burnings and ritual murders abound, everyone’s lives become more troubled. Wray deftly captures teenage alienation, the precarity of adolescence, and the way multiple subgenres of metal can provide solace, be it via glitzy fantasy or doomy angst. That is, so long as life doesn’t try to imitate art: The closing section, set in Norway, features set pieces that make the novel as much a horror story as a bildungsroman. And though the storytelling drags in places, Wray is gifted at capturing the dynamics of difficult friendships, as Kip’s relationships with Kira and Leslie snap and reknit over money, addiction, and music. Metal might offer a form of salvation, but the story turns on the commitments the three make to each other when the music is off.
A giddy, harrowing, manic, and often dark coming-of-age tale.
"A cacophony of literary talent and incredible storytelling...This masterful work — buoyed by Wray's clear skill when it comes to writing music and the power it wields—is perfect for fans of literature and rock and roll alike." —The Today Show
"As terrifying as the novel becomes, it’s also, at its core, a lot of fun. . . . Gone to the Wolves is an anti-establishment treatise, bildungsroman and extreme love letter to the flame of youth." —Sarah Gerard, New York Times
"A blast of a summer novel." —Chicago Tribune
"John Wray’s writing is propulsive, unsettling; tender in some places and sharp as razorwire in others. The last third of this book had my ears ringing, like standing in front of a live amp inside a tornado. This book is an absolute banger.” —Electric Lit
"Gone to the Wolves is a powerful and juicy novel about a particular time, subculture, and the ways people can find themselves in—or can deliberately disappear into—fandom." —Ilana Masad, NPR
"Outstanding . . . Wray knows his stuff, and he masterfully sets the table . . . Gone to the Wolves captures the feeling of loving something so intensely it just might kill you." —Jim Ruland, Los Angeles Times
"A masterly opus of Florida metalheads . . . Wray writes about music with the enthusiasm of a fan and the precision of a critic, packing the pages with spot-on details and cannily capturing the allure of extreme music. The pages of this anthem are as uncompromising as the music they depict." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Wray deftly captures teenage alienation, the precarity of adolescence, and the way multiple subgenres of metal can provide solace, be it via glitzy fandom or gloomy angst . . . Wray is gifted at capturing the dynamics of difficult friendships . . . A giddy, harrowing, manic, and often dark coming-of-age tale." —Kirkus Reviews
Wray’s edgy prose is as crisp as ever, resulting in a melodious exploration of the succor that music and fan groups can provide, especially to rudderless teens desperate to find anchor anywhere.” —Booklist (starred reviews)
“Gone To The Wolves is a love letter to metal that captures both its brutal kinetics and its nearness to the sublime.” —Raven Leilani, author of Luster
“In Gone to the Wolves, John Wray delves so deep into rock ‘n’ roll’s heart of darkness that it’s a wonder he made it out alive. There’s never been a novel like this.” —Marlon James, author of Moon Witch, Spider King
“Riveting and electric. Wray’s brilliant new novel is both a page-turner and an elegant meditation on how far we’d go for our allegiances.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
“A hair-raising, head-banging, meet-the-Devil epic tale of love, youth and rock and roll. Get in the car and go for a ride: Gone to the Wolves is one hell of a good time.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less Is Lost
“A wild somersault of a book with pitch perfect humor and pitch black darkness. Wray, a foremost cartographer of the weird, writes with nonchalance and grace, delighting at every turn.” —Catherine Lacey, author of Pew and Nobody Is Ever Missing
“Gone to the Wolves delivers the gorgeous head rush of an underground metal show, in the company of darkly charismatic people who may or may not be murderers, at no actual risk to life and limb. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted from moshing without having to get off your sofa. John Wray writes too damn well!” —Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise