Birnam Wood

“An eco-thriller of grand psychological and social ambitions.”—Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

“A grand, chilling thriller . . . that grips you by the throat until its final paragraph. Catton successfully scorches the earth with her prose . . . Spellbinding . . . Unforgettable.”—Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston Globe

“Complex and often shocking . . . The biggest twist in Birnam Wood is the realization that every decision matters, though not in ways we could have anticipated.”—B.D. McClay, The New Yorker

“[An] explosive story, mysterious and gripping from start to finish . . . deeply enjoyable, action-packed . . . But if there’s danger everywhere, there’s hope to—and that’s a remarkable accomplishment.”—Shahidha Bari, Financial Times

“Twisty and surprising, and Franzen-like in its rich character development and clear-eyed descriptions of social issues like cultural appropriation, class, wealth inequality, nature and the universal human desire to be liked.”—Samantha Schoech, San Francisco Chronicle

“[A] virtuoso performance: elaborately plotted, richly conceived, enormously readable.”—Kevin Power, The Guardian

“[Birnam Wood] will have you gnawing your knuckles.”—Lisa Allardice, The Guardian

“Catton skewers the mores of our era in gorgeous language, cementing her reputation as a generational talent.”—Oprah Daily

“Savagely satirical . . . Funny, provocative, and heartbreaking.”—People

“A thoughtful, personality-rich page-turner.”—Vanity Fair

“Birnam Wood is a multi-layered book . . . Catton is not just a master at spinning a web of competing philosophies, though; her characters are deeply flawed but you can’t help but root for them.”—Chloe Schama, Vogue

“Moral battles, compromises, and mysteries fill in the beating heart of this brilliant, clever book.”—Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle

“[Birnam Wood] so brilliantly and brutally changes our perception of what has gone before . . . A dark and brilliant novel about the violence and tawdriness of late capitalism.”—Alex Preston, The Observer (London)

“A hold-on-to-your-hat eco-thriller with big, juicy themes and morally conflicted characters who could be in the room with you . . . Brilliant.”—Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Sunday Times (London)

“Catton’s best book yet . . . Ingenious, intricate yet always lucid.”—Claire Lowdon, The Times Literary Supplement (London)

“[Eleanor] Catton has come roaring back with a propulsive thriller . . . [She] is merciless to her characters and extremely generous to her readers, deploying buoyant, seemingly effortless prose.”—James Tarny, Bloomberg

“Persuasive and devastating.”—Laura McLean-Ferris, 4Columns

“A stark and powerful indictment of the innumerable ways that we are undone, individually and collectively, by ambition . . . [Birnam Wood is] Shakespearian in its sound and fury.”—Joshua Bartlett, Ploughshares

“Mysterious and marvelously unpredictable, Birnam Wood had me reading the way I used to as a kid—curiously, desperately, and as if it was the whole world. Eleanor Catton connects to the natural and unnatural ways in which we try to control our environments, our impulses, and one another. A spectacular novel, conjured by a virtuoso.”—Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Phenomenal and utterly gripping, Birnam Wood has the sense of a literary writer setting herself free and having a bit of fun. It’s fantastic. I loved it.”—Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist

“If George Eliot had written a thriller, it might have been a bit like this.”—Francis Spufford, author of Light Perpetual

“A filmic and page-turning thriller. Hubris and ambition, vanity and greed, principle and expediency, courage and hope—all are here, but not necessarily where you expect to find them.”—Carys Davies, author of The Mission House

“As saturated with moral scrutiny and propulsive plotting as 19th-century greats; it’s a twisty thriller via Charles Dickens, only with drones . . . Readers will hold their breath until the last page . . . This blistering look at the horrors of late capitalism manages to also be a wildly fun read.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Sharp, sizzling . . . Birnam Wood is tightly wound and psychologically thrilling, and Catton’s fans and readers new to her powers will savor it to the end.”—Booklist (starred review)

“A tragic eco-thriller of betrayed ideals and compromised loyalties . . . [Catton] pulls a taut, suspenseful story from the tangle of vivid characters. Thanks to a convincing backdrop of ecological peril, Catton’s human drama is made even more acute.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)