Fatima Bhutto’s memoir is a raw and devastating account of toxic love, loss, and reclaiming a life

💡 Novelist, poet, and member of one of Pakistan’s most turbulent political dynasties, Fatima Bhutto’s life was anything but easy. In her memoir, The Hour of the Wolf, she turns her gaze on herself. Published earlier this year, the debut memoir is an intimate, non-linear account of grief, love, abuse, and the difficult work of reclaiming one’s life, aided by arts, nature, and the love of one Jack Russell terrier.

What to expect: The memoir opens in the spring of 2020, with Bhutto quarantined in the English countryside with her beloved, loyal canine Coco. Written in essay form and structured non-chronologically, the book weaves between a toxic decade-long relationship with an older, charismatic man, the grief of losing her father to assassination when she was a teenager, a yearning for motherhood, and meditations on nature, literature, cinema, and the animal world. Animal motifs — wolves, wild deer, and dogs — run throughout, drawn in part from Barry Lopez’s Of Wolves and Men, framing the relationship between hunter and prey as a lens for understanding abuse. Through nature and through Coco, Bhutto finds her way back to herself.

What we liked: Bhutto does not dress her story up. The writing is simple but carries depth, conveying everything it needs to without ornamentation and keeping the reader both hooked and at times necessarily unsettled. She speaks honestly of her innermost thoughts: building her partner up, comparing herself unfavorably, and only gradually recognizing what that pattern had cost her. As Rupi Kaur put it: “With searing honesty, Fatima Bhutto explores the quiet devastations of love, and what happens when we wait for a change that never comes.”

The verdict: At just under 190 pages — or four hours on audiobook, narrated by Bhutto herself — this is among our recent favorites. You can finish it in two sittings, or put the audiobook on while you work and find yourself done before you expected. If you’ve been having some difficult reflections on your own life as of late, you’ll find solace and lots of lessons in Bhutto’s story.

WHERE TO FIND IT- You can find the paperback at Diwan. You can also get the e-book on Amazon or read it on Storytel — where you can also listen to the four-hour audiobook.