Dana Rufolo reviews: The Wilderness  Global Women’s Caucus Books Abroad – February 15, 2026

The book The Wilderness is extraordinary. I am a small-time published author myself and am starting my first novel, and I admire Flournoy's enormous writing skills. The story unravels rather a bit towards the end, but the story of a group of women turning themselves into each other's family is rich in its investigation of the contemporary world that I can't access any longer.

These American women bond and protect, love and interact with complete faith that they are a unit. They are totally cool, totally modern, but look how food is central to their identity and kindness. It is no small detail that the restaurant one of them runs is called a SAFE place. Everybody needs to eat, every body needs food, and these women are interested in nurturing – not necessarily because traditionally women are associated with nurturing but because nurturing is something they truly identify with.

The author also shows an extraordinary interest in fabrics and clothing design. This again is a female trait. But being female isn't on the agenda: fabrics are dress are part of the portrait of modern women who have fun even if can't find meaningful partners because the coming together of a man and woman in their world has traditionally meant that children are born, and they are not particularly interested in having children. 

Nor are the men they meet. Or maybe they are interested but

can't see a way into that cocooned yesteryear lifestyle. 

This novel really puts an eyeball on how society changes when women embrace the new possibilities offered to them, when they can be bosses and executives and owners of restaurants and shops, and when in fact not being so inclined is seen as 

uncool, not contemporary. 

Yes, these women are feminists without being politically feminist, without demonstrating or protesting. (We have, and so have they by the end of the novel, more pressing reasons to demonstrate nowadays.)

Our discussion could be about how this group of women have bought into the new feminist beliefs and how adaptive they are, how they succeed and prosper. How strength resides in taking up the freedoms that are available to us women today and simply living by the new rules, without fanfare.