Ayo Onatade is an avid reader of crime and mystery fiction. She has been writing reviews, interviews and articles on the subject for the last 12 years; with an eclectic taste from historical to hardboiled, short stories and noir films
The Untameable is set in the late 1960s, and is an epic saga about revenge and retribution by a teenage boy seeking vengeance for the murder of his brother. The revenge story is interwoven with the story of that of an Inuit hunter and its prey. The narrative journey traverses Mexico and Canada, where the reader is introduced to Juan - the young protagonist in a series of short but incredibly descriptive paragraphs.
Juan and his older brother Carlos have hardworking parents who attempt to raise them out of poverty by sending them to private school; but to no avail as both boys are soon mixed up in a network of misfortune, cruelty and dishonesty. Despite this, both are successful rather to the chagrin of a Catholic hit squad that is working in tandem with corrupt police. With the death of his brother Carlos - to whom he is devoted and that of his parents and grandmother, Juan is having to deal with his own bereavement and brimming anger alongside the fact that he now has to defend himself.
Weighing in at over 700 pages this is a novel that you will either appreciate the way in which the story is told or find it rather frustrating especially at the beginning. It is hard to connect the story between Juan and Amaruq who is part Inuit, part Scot and is hunting a wolf during a Canadian winter with what else is going on. It is interesting how their two lives entwine. However, the way in which Carlos's desperate life is portrayed and that of Amaruq's gruelling journey is realistic and filmic and clearly Guillermo Arriaga's screenwriting is coming into play at this point. Interspersed with all this are also chapters consisting of short descriptions of various literary heroes and their horrendous and strange deaths.
Whilst The Untameable is a story of redemption, and coping with grief and vengeance - it is at its core a literary thriller, one that is as fearless, in its depiction of cruel brutality.
When the book is closed, one is left with a sense of redemptive fury, as well as closure to a dark and highly literate tale.
