
The Leopard Is Loose
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
George Guidall
-
By:
-
Stephen Harrigan
The fragile, 1952 postwar tranquility of a young boy’s world explodes one summer day when a leopard escapes from the Oklahoma City zoo, throwing all the local residents into dangerous excitement, in this evocative story of a child’s confrontation with his deepest fears.
For Grady McClarty, an ever-watchful but bewildered five-year-old boy, World War II is only a troubling, ungraspable event that occurred before he was born. But he feels its effects all around him. He and his older brother Danny are fatherless, and their mother, Bethie, is still grieving for her fighter-pilot husband. Most of all, Grady senses it in his two uncles: young combat veterans determined to step into a fatherhood role for their nephews, even as they struggle with the psychological scars they carry from the war.
When news breaks that a leopard has escaped from the Oklahoma City Zoo, the playthings and imagined fears of Grady’s childhood begin to give way to real-world terrors, most imminently the dangerous jungle cat itself. The Leopard Is Loose is a stunning encapsulation of America in the 1950s, and a moving portrait of a boy’s struggle to find his place in the world.
©2022 Stephen Harrigan (P)2022 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“Harrigan’s tale rings true . . . [The Leopard Is Loose] engagingly draws upon family lore, those dinner-table anecdotes beginning, ‘Do you remember…?’ . . . Harrigan deftly catches the flavorful sense of a place and time as witnessed by a child”—Joyce Sáenz Harris, The Dallas Morning News
“Taut and muscular. Not a word is wasted. . . [An] invaluable historical novel.”—Michael Barnes, Austin American-Statesman
“Absorbing . . . Depicts the terror sparked by the leopard’s escape, including scenes in which cars filled with gun-toting would-be game hunters raced down the city’s streets . . . The book also touches on some of the big issues of the time, including the psychological damage sustained by those who fought in World War II.”—Deborah Martin, San Antonio Express-News
I could identify with several aspects of the author’s life. I also have a mother who lost her husband during World War II. I grew up attending the Catholic church.
Well told from a child’s perspective. I enjoyed this book, very much.
Yes, this is worth your time
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoughtfully written and read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautiful and touching
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
personal memoir no plot
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.