About the Book
The Rewilding (Transit Lounge, 2024) is an exhilarating and unforgettable love song for our world. Heartbroken and in fear for his life, corporate whistle blower, Jagger Eckerman, escapes to hide out in a remote cave, but kick-arse radical, Nia Moretti, is furious a ‘capitalist suit’ has taken over her cave. It is hatred at first sight. Yet Nia is hiding for reasons of her own, ones that drag Jagger closer to death as they are forced on the run together and he is unwittingly pulled deeper into Nia’s reckless mission to help save the planet. But who can save Jagger from the relentless pursuit of the man who wants him dead? Both an electrifying cat-and-mouse-chase and an odd couple love story, The Rewilding captures the essence of what it means to be alive today in this cusp of change pulsing with possibilities. It is a passionate intimation of hope.
Chat with the Author
Mary: I can’t remember how I found out about your newest novel, The Rewilding, but when I saw the cover, I thought: I need to read that book! It’s absolutely stunning. Then, I looked at the author’s name and was thrilled that I knew you and could hopefully feature the novel at Dragonfly. The last time we talked was about your novel Beneath the Mother Tree. What have you been doing since?
Donna: I’ve actually written two books since then. Bloomfield (working title), my third novel, will hopefully go out on submission by the end of this year. I’ve been flat out with promotion for The Rewilding but looking forward to getting back to the final edits of Bloomfield, which is a domestic noir/who-done-it that explores the importance of community and human connection in this rapidly changing world we find ourselves in.
Mary: Inga Simpson (author of the Last Woman in the World) described The Rewilding as “A breathless chase thriller with a warm ecological heart.” I love this description, and it reminded me that any genre can have eco-fiction at its essence. And such stories are what our world needs as we continue to cope with a climate and ecosystems changing in disastrous ways while still approaching this at the angles that relate closely to other parts of our humanity, such as relationships and love. What led you to write this novel?
Donna: The Rewilding came from a deep place of climate grief, eco-anxiety and anger over the lack of action in drawing down emissions and stopping land clearing. The dominate narrative around anthropogenic climate change is one of despair, and I realised I desperately needed hope. It got to the point where I was waking in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, feeling unsafe, or crying over the high extinction rates in frogs. I was a mess. So you could say I wrote my way towards hope. I was reading a lot of wonderful yet depressing climate fiction that was set in dire near futures. I wanted to read a book that was set now in this incredible cusp of change. I needed to read a book that empowered me and gave me hope…so I suppose I wrote the book I wanted to read, which is always the case, I’m starting to realise.
Mary: You have two characters, Nia Moretti (climate activist) and Jagger Eckerman (whistleblower at his father’s company), who end up together in a cave hide-out and then go on the run together. It’s not love at first sight; they have issues with each other, but as the story goes along, that changes. I love these kinds of relationships that start with opposites attracting but then the characters start to find commonalities. It’s a journey in and of itself. Of course it adds tension to the novel, but also provides hope that change is possible. How did you come up with these characters?
Donna: All four of my books (book four is dot point scribbles in a notebook at this stage), have arrived in what I call ‘the whoosh’. It feels like the top of my head opens to the sky and the characters, setting, plot, and most importantly the ending, come at me in a huge blast of energy. It happens so quickly that I need to write it down in note form (that no one but me can understand), as quickly as I can. Sometimes it is hard to keep up as the ideas tumble in. Nia and Jagger both arrived in that initial ‘whoosh’ pretty well fully formed. There was a lot more of Nia in the first draft, but I found the more of her I removed, the stronger and more mysterious she became.
Mary: You live and write in Australia, and your novels put the ruggedness and beauty of nature up front. This is so appealing to me as a reader. What is the area and setting for this book?
Donna: It is a chase thriller so it moves around some beautiful wild landscapes of Australia. The first part of the book is set in coastal sandstone country, in a 1500 hectare national park peppered with caves and hidden beaches; then they flee to the lower alpine region, which is snaked through by magnificent snow melt rivers and flora unique to that area. They also end up in a hidden valley in rainforest country, which are some of the oldest rainforests in the world. These are all real landscapes in Australia, and the climax of the book takes place in the outback, in red soil desert country, which has also been poisoned by fracking.
Mary: How has your locale suffered ecologically in the past few years?
Donna: Sadly, there are large sways of Australia where fracking has occurred, and the land is dead or dying. Australia also has one of the highest extinction rates in the world due to land clearing. Our federal government pretends to care but turns a blind eye as the state governments continue to clear and greenlight coal and gas mines. There are parts of Australia now where our national emblem, the koala, is extinct, and many areas where it is on the verge of extinction.
Mary: That’s awful to hear, but you tend to write with optimism, it seems, about the climate crisis. Many people are burned out on dystopian stories, so that’s great. Have you got any feedback from readers?
Donna: The book has only been out a month, but the feedback so far has been phenomenal. In fact, a review in the Weekend Australian (our national paper) appeared yesterday, referring to it as glorious! So it seems I wasn’t the only one needing hope. Your readers can head to The Rewilding page on my site to read more.
Mary: Before we close, I read that Beneath the Mother Tree is also coming out in audio this year?
Donna: Yes! It is in production as we speak.
Mary: Do you have anything else to add?
Donna: Even though The Rewilding is full of hope, it also maintains a steady gaze on the dire situation humanity finds itself in, so in some ways it is a difficult read for those who may not be aware of the gravity of the climate crises. It is easy to blame the billionaires and the co-corporations (and I’m not saying they are not to blame; they are the main offenders!); for those readers who feel disempowered, on The Rewilding page on my website (link above), I have listed ten simple things we can easily do as individuals to help make a difference. If all of us in the richer countries of the world—I’m not talking to people in the poorer countries who are already suffering from the effects of climate change; I’m talking to us in the richer countries who are adding to the emissions—if we do these little things, it will make a huge difference. There is power in action and numbers. Sometimes I feel as a species we have forgotten that. We are curled into a foetal position with our heads in the sand. We need to stand up, shake ourselves off, and remember that every action we take will help determine the fate of humanity. It is up to us now.
Mary: Thanks for providing that list and some empowerment, and for taking the time to talk with Dragonfly again!
About the Author
Donna M Cameron is an award-winning playwright, short-film writer, and radio dramatist who now writes novels. Her books have been described as nature centric. Her debut, Beneath the Mother Tree (published in 2018) was listed as a top Australian fiction read and was selected for the 2019 Queensland Writer’s Centre /Screen Queensland’s film/TV Adaptable program. The manuscript of her second book, The Rewilding, won her a 2021 Fellowship at Australia’s national writer’s house, Varuna. The Rewilding was published in March 2024 in Australia and New Zealand. The Weekend Australian (Australia’s national newspaper) described it as ‘glorious.’ Donna was recently accorded a Regional Arts Development Fund grant to work on her third novel, Bloomfield.
