After a successful debut with Mankiller, Ashley Mayne’s new novel, Tiger, takes us beyond the Texan landscape of her first novel. Introduces us to Tony Luna, a Brooklyn-based photographer who discovers a feral girl and brings her back to his apartment.
There is a tiger on the loose in Hoboken; Tony now has a wild creature of his own at home. His old mentor, Javier, a Jesuit father, still occupies Tony’s memories, and the book describes their relationship from both Tony’s and Javier’s points of view. A tiger has also figured in the Jesuit’s life, a period of which was spent in India. There he comes face to face with the ferocious wild beast and, by facing directly the possibility that he will lose his life, he develops a new sense of himself in the world.
Acclaimed novelist Mary Caponegro, author of All Fall Down, writes, “Tiger is a novel of such vivacity, authority and complexity that you would never guess its author could be at the start of her career. Ashley Mayne creates a universe of intrigue, sensuality and psychological richness; of deities and wild beasts, of Jesuit fervor and primal urges, all played out on an international canvas, driven by a plot that never flags. Even without a tiger in the middle, this is that rarest of artifacts: a literary page turner. Open it up; I guarantee you won’t be able to stop.”