Wild Pets, a debut novel by alumna Amber Medland '15, will be released on July 1, 2021 by Faber & Faber.
The novel follows three main characters—Iris, Ezra, and Nance—as they navigate their complex relationship as well as the rocky years after graduating from university. In a whirlwind of sex, alcohol, drugs, ambition, and complicated friendships, the three protagonists face their adulthood in a story that highlights the destrictive underbelly of creative ambition and the delicate balance of mental health.
NewStatesman listed Wild Pets among its Most Anticipated Fiction of 2021 alongside other debut novels of British and Irish authors "with themes of trauma, ennui, and authenticity."
According to Medland, "I started writing Wild Pets at the beginning of 2018 and it absorbed pretty much everything I'd written up until that point, including fragments of the short stories I wrote at Columbia. Somebody at a Christmas party told me about Stendhal's salt-mines and I couldn't get it out of my head—everything else came after that. I am thrilled that it will now be published by Faber in the UK."
Amber Medland studied English Literature and has a Masters of Philosophy in American Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge. She has an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University in New York. She was born in 1990 and lives in London.