Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

Am I?

At reconnaissance altitude the view was spectacular, distracting him from his fear. Snow on the Grampians, rank after rank of hard white peaks stretching out, a serious version of the Cumbrian uplands, steel-blue tarns and lochs, trout and salmon burns. Here and there, tucked-away settlements, a miniature white palace with towers, the old Glencoe ski lift looping up and over to the runs, and the winding roads made famous by song.

The transmitters were still working; the telemetry signal started beeping ten minutes into the flight and they were quickly found, cutting through a narrow valley, strung one behind the other. Dark-backed and long-legged, their tails shaggy. The plane flew over, looped round, following their trajectory. She and Lawrence watched as the four wolves loped onto the outskirts of Rannoch, its turf still bloody from autumn, as if battle-worn; the red bracken beginning to disappear under the first low-lying drifts. The pilot had looked over his shoulder and put his thumb up.

Fàilte, he’d said.

Thanks for assistance with research to the following: Andy Wightman, Land Matters — for helpful speculation about reintroduction and political scenarios north of the border. George Monbiot’s book Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding was also informative and inspiring. Vicky Allison Hughes, formerly of The UK Wolf Conservation Trust, for all things wolf-related and the tour of the sanctuary near Reading. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation , edited by L David Mech and Luigi Boitani, was vital reading. Stan Tomkiewicz, for advice about telemetry and transmitter implants. The Rosenwoods, Mike, Linda and Erik, for travels in Idaho. Olivia Pinkney, Deputy Chief Constable for Sussex Police, for procedural information and worst-case-scenario advice. Alan Bissett and Kirstin Innes, for some excellent introductions. Mairi MacPherson, for civil service and governmental information. Tony and Hilary Renkin, for their early recollections. Dr Frances Astley-Jones, for medical advice, and Dr Richard Thwaites, for psychology and Cumbrian advice. Anna Tristram, for linguistics. Stephen Brown, for architectural references.

Thanks for editorial feedback to the following: Lee Brackstone, Hannah Griffiths, Kate Nintzel, John Freeman and Ellah Allfrey. And for general literary discussions, aesthetic, poetic and metaphoric, to: Owen Sheers, Jarred McGinnis, Katja Sutela, Joanna Harma and Henna Silvennoinen.

Special thanks to Clare Conville and James Garvey, the fiercest of supporters.

SARAH HALLwas born in Cumbria in 1974. She is the author of Haweswater , which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize. In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo , was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region) and the Prix Femina Étranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army , was published in 2007 and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction and longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award. The Carhullan Army was listed as one of The Times 100 Best Books of the Decade. Her fourth novel, How to Paint a Dead Man , was published in 2009 and was longlisted for the Man Booker prize and won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2010. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her first collection of short stories, The Beautiful Indifference , was published by HarperCollins in 2013. The Beautiful Indifference won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Award.

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