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January 28, 2026
The Puma by Daniel Wiles review
A father and son move to the Patagonian woods – but intensity wanes when a search for home becomes an obsessive quest for revenge
TL;DR
- The novel "The Puma" by Daniel Wiles is set in the early 1950s in the Patagonian woods.
- The protagonist, Bernardo, moves with his son James from England to his childhood home.
- Bernardo's initial goal of finding a home is overshadowed by an obsessive quest for revenge after a tragedy.
- The revenge plot focuses on hunting an elusive puma.
- The novel critiques 20th-century masculinity and the displacement of trauma onto the natural world.
- It contrasts capitalist destruction with indigenous livelihoods through the character of a Mapuche man.
- The prose is described as stylishly elliptical, blending scientific precision with simile.
- The novel is considered less distinctive than Wiles's debut, "Mercia's Take", but continues his ambition to explore marginalized histories.
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