The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Author: David Wroblewski
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009
Pages: 608
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life on his family's farm in remote northern Wisconsin where they raise and train an extraordinary breed of dog. But when tragedy strikes, Edgar is forced to flee into the vast neighboring wilderness accompanied by only three yearly pups. Struggling for survival, Edgar comes of age in the wild, and must face the choice of leaving forever or revealing the terrible truth behind what has happened.

Review: Most books are shorter than the number of pages it took this book to grow on me. I only stuck with it because my coworker recommended it, and I couldn't tell her I failed. Even if I didn't end up liking it, I still wanted to have an intelligent conversation and be able to defend my position. 

I read somewhere that this novel is the author's retelling of Hamlet, and even though it's been decades since I read that play, the parallels are clear. From that perspective, this novel fascinated me. 

It was also to my benefit to have someone with whom to discuss the novel. Talking about this with someone who likes complex, layered, slow-burn novels brought to light details I wouldn't have thought of and provided a different perspective. It was more like sitting in English class, rather than in a book club meeting. I enjoy having more thought-provoking conversations.

From the beginning I've struggled for the right adjectives to describe this novel. Intense? It's not a heart-racing novel. Depressing? Maybe here or there, but overall, no. Hopeful? Not really, it's one unfortunate event after another. I still don't know.

The conclusion of this novel gets a lot of criticism in the reviews I read, but my opinion is that it ended the only way it could.

Ultimately, I gave this novel 3 stars. Not a bad story or writing, but it could have been (and should have been) significantly shorter. If you're going to write a long novel you have to make sure it takes all of those pages to tell the story. In this case, it wasn't necessary.