The Jungle Law

In the summer of 1892, 26-year-old Rudyard Kipling arrives in Vermont with little money, a pregnant wife, and the germ of a story about a feral child raised by a pack of wolves. Fleeing the literary high life in London, he hopes to build a sanctuary that will offer him refuge from the scrutiny incurred by his burgeoning fame and the wounds of his own troubled past. Kipling soon settles into his new home and sets to work on The Jungle Book, eventually introducing his young neighbor, Joe, to the likes of Mowgli, Shere Khan, and Baloo. As Kipling’s stories take root in Joe’s mind, the child is able to free himself from the confines of his dismal life, newly enlivened by the powerful and unsettling influence of the imagination.