In the untamed wild, an alpha will always emerge to take control. In her shocking new novel, The New Wilderness, Diane Cook explores the importance of leadership. When Carl first talked with Bea about leading together, saying “ I think you’re powerful. And I think we could be very powerful together”, she was skeptical. Bea thought the group was better off making decisions as a group, so she didn’t really see a need to step up and side with Carl. He warned her that she would need her someday, but she didn’t fully believe him. When she returned from her time in the city, that someday comes. Carl exploits Beas’s absence and the arrival of fresh newcomers to establish himself as the leader and to remove the biggest obstacle in his way, the group consensus. In the wilderness, the only way to acquire power is to take it by force. Carl does not allow any other member of the Community to take his power as leader of the community. He commands the respect of the Newcomers and ensures that no one challenges his authority, until Bea aggressively does so. On the other side of the spectrum, Glen and Debra have no authority with their “consensus” methods and no one else is willing to command as much authority as Bea and Carl, the “true” leaders of the Community. Carl’s rule shows his strengths and weaknesses as while he is a good hunter and is good at teaching others, his ego gets in the way. He often sleeps with women in the community even though he is in a relationship with Val, and he lets the newcomers starve Anges and Glen. Infuriated to see Glen and Agnes thinner and less nourished than the rest of the group, Bea knows she needs to make a move. Bea takes advantage of Carl’s weakness by sleeping with him in order to regain her power in her community and save her family. Carl does not actually want to lead, just for people to go through him, allowing her to take the reins as the de facto leader of the Community. With her newfound position, she fixes the food inequality between the Newcomers and the Originalists. However, doing so requires her to abandon Glen for Carl, sacrificing part of their relationship.
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