Kevin Powers' new WWI novel follows a Vanderbilt student, his love, and a wild orphan

Kevin Powers' new book, Children of the Wild, centers on Roy Young, a Vanderbilt scholar intent on modernizing his family farm in Ewer’s Rock, Virginia, and marrying Samantha Hatton, the minister’s daughter. After Sam rebuffs Roy’s assumptions, he returns to college humbled, while a summer journey leads him to Ennis Duke, an orphan whose name sticks after he spots it on a coat label. Ennis integrates into the community, works on Roy’s estate, and later joins Roy on the French front after both enlist in 1917.

Powers juxtaposes harrowing trench warfare—complete with relentless bombardments and a notorious "Suicide Hill"—with the home front’s influenza devastation and a post-war power grab by Roy’s former roommate Fintan Thoreau. Drawing on his previous war novels, Powers delivers stark, visceral prose that examines how conflict consumes more than it gives, while weaving themes of love, friendship, and redemption.