Book Review Robert Wiersema FIERCE KINGDOM by Gin Phillips Fierce Kingdom, the new novel from Birmingham, Alabama writer Gin Phillips, is rooted in a single, timeless question: what would you do to save your child? The result is an emotionally powerful, contemporary, pulse-pounding literary thriller, the likes of which I haven’t read in quite some time. Joan and her four-year-old son Lincoln are at the zoo. It’s part of their after-school routine – “they alternate between the zoo and the library and the parks and the science museum” – and the place is largely deserted as closing time approaches. As they are playing with Lincoln’s action figures in a deserted area of the park, “a sharp, loud sound carries through the woods. Two cracks, then several more. Pops, like balloons bursting. Or fireworks... There is another bang. Another and another. It sounds too loud to be balloons, too infrequent to be a jackhammer.” Part of Joan knows what the sounds are, but she dismisses the idea. It is only as they approach the gate, and Joan sees what she thinks, initially, are fallen scarecrows, that Joan realizes her worst fears are the truth: a gunman – “Jeans and a dark shirt, no coat...a gun in his right hand, some sort of rifle” – is moving through the park. “She grabs Lincoln and heaves him up,” and Joan runs back into the zoo. From that simple, chilling premise, Phillips weaves not only an intense story of peril and survival, but a heart-rending examination of parental love and limitation. Joan has some great strengths; she is familiar with the zoo, its winding pathways, its shadows, its empty enclosures, and she’s relatively clear-headed (many readers will silently compare themselves to Joan: “Would I have thought of that? What would I do?”), but she is also realistically drawn, and subject to the same realities as any mother. Phillips has an acute eye for the behaviours and phases of children. Lincoln is a smart boy…verging on the precocious…and can be reasoned with, but only to a realistic degree. Sooner or later all kids get bored, or hungry, or cranky, and they start to act up. They have tantrums and crying jags, they talk in voices too-loud and squirm around when they should be sitting still. We all know how frustrating this can be in church or a restaurant, but transpose that reality to a darkening zoo, hiding in the shadows, listening to the footfalls of a nearby gunman, holding a squirming child who just wants crackers, or to go home, and won’t lower his voice. Won’t calm down. Won’t be reasoned with. Fierce Kingdom is a powerful novel, and Joan and Lincoln are unforgettable characters. Chief among its strengths is the fact that it’s quite a short book, fewer than 300 pages, and one that could, conceivably, be read in a single sitting (it is also incredibly hard to put down, somake sure that you have time before you start reading). If you are able to read it all in a single gulp, the book actually unfolds in real time for both the characters and the reader. Your three or so hours of reading will match the three or so hours covered by the events of the novel, lending the book an even-greater level of realism and of urgency, allowing you to put yourself firmly in Joan’s place and maintain that fictional connection in a powerful and unique way. Fierce Kingdom is an intense reading experience, the sort of book that will have you turning the pages as fast as you can, but it also raises the questions of values and morality that only seem to emerge when people are pressed to their breaking point. It’s a mustread, a thought-provoking work, and one that will stick with you long after you are finished reading. 42 | www.snowbirds.org
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