Author(s): Emma Neale

Fiction

A moving and compelling story about society and our reactions to difference, evocative and beautifully written. A young man is found unconscious in a remote forest: He is very tall and completely covered with fur. Apart from his appearance, he seems like a normal human being, but when he wakes up in Dunedin Hospital he refuses to talk. The doctors, excited by the potential scientific discovery, want to run tests on him; the media, eager to solve and glamorise his mysterious past, want to get his story; and the public, naturally curious, want to gawp and prod. In the hospital he is befriended by a young woman and starts to talk, but once released he hides away, overwhelmed by the voracious interest of the outside world.