History of Wolves : A Novel
Author(s): Emily Fridlund
**A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book of the Year; An O magazine Book to Pick Up; A USA Today Notable Book; An Amazon.com Best Book of the Month; A People Best New Book**
Garnering rave reviews from around the world, History of Wolves is novelist Emily Fridlund’s darkly shimmering debut
“Literary fiction’s newest golden girl.” —National Post
Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as the last vestige of a lost counterculture world. Isolated at home and an outsider at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and the new history teacher, Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.
And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose but with this new sense of belonging come expectations and secrets she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a summer, Linda makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. As she struggles to find a way out of the sequestered world into which she was born, Linda confronts the life-and-death consequences of the things people do—and fail to do—for the people they love.
A “compelling portrait of a troubled adolescent trying to find her way in a new and frightening world” (People), Emily Fridlund’s propulsive and gorgeously written History of Wolves introduces a new writer of enormous range and talent.
Review(s):
“So delicately calibrated and precisely beautiful that one might not immediately sense the sledgehammer of pain building inside this book. And I mean that in the best way. What powerful tension and depth this provides!”
“[A] stellar debut. . . . A sense of foreboding subtly permeates the story . . . [the] wordsmithing is fantastic. . . . Fridlund has elegantly crafted a striking protagonist whose dark leanings cap off the tragedy at the heart of this book, which is moving and disturbing.”
“Fridlund is an assured writer. . . . the sharp consequences for [the novel’s] characters make it singe and sing—a literary tour de force.”
“The writing is beautiful . . . a triumph of tone and attitude. Lovers of character-driven literary fiction will embrace this.”
“As exquisite a first novel as I’ve ever encountered. Poetic, complex and utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.”
“Emily Fridlund’s language is generous and precise, her story grief-tempered and forcefully moving. History of Wolves is the loneliest thing I’ve read in years, and it’s gorgeous. These are haunted pages.”
“Lyrical and beautiful. Its otherworldly winter escapism is just right for mid-season stir crazy. . . . Supple fiction formed in able hands, History of Wolves delivers Emily Fridlund to the doorstep of literature’s beau monde; I think she’ll find a good home there.”
“History of Wolves is as beautiful and as icy as the Minnesota woods where it’s set, and with her first book, Fridlund has already proven herself to be a singular talent.”
“A novel of ideas that reads like smart pulp, a page-turner of craft and calibration.”
“Mysteries multiply, and prose and plot braid together into an indelible story of fascination and dread.”
International Dublin Literary Award
ISBN: 9781443453752