The promise of something sinister about to happen keeps the reader turning page after page.

Didn't like it as much as I thought I would, and I can't help feeling that I never got the full story of either of the story lines--when the protagonist was young, during the time the story takes place, and her adulthood. Great premise, but skeletal. Imagery was fantastic, and I liked the writing style. I just wanted more detail, I think.

I couldn't even finish this book. I have no idea how it ended up in the Indie Next List as a top pick. It was so boring. Maybe if I had stuck with it, it would have paid off but I feel like it's a writer's job to catch the interest of the reader at the beginning so they DON'T put it down. I have too much to read to force myself to slog through something that slow.

This is the second book I’ve read this year that portrays a family tragedy more as a series of snapshots than a continuous, easy-to-follow narrative. The first was Idaho, in which a woman marries a man whose life with his first wife imploded in the wake of a sudden accident in the woods. In History of Wolves, a teenage babysitter latches onto a neighbor family that on the outside seems good and wholesome, especially after the girl’s troubled childhood in a now-defunct cult group, but upon closer inspection is hiding a sinister, devastating secret.

What’s great about the structure of both novels is how much room there is for interpretation, and how much close detail you get within each scene. What isn’t great about it is basically those same two things. Room for interpretation can also feel like lack of closure, and close detail only helps when the key scenes happen onstage, where we can see them. If all the big stuff happens when the narrator isn’t present, or if the narrator is deliberately withholding, well, let’s just say after being forced to make the fifteenth inference, the bloom comes off the rose for me.

With both books, I felt all the emotions of the characters keenly—maybe too keenly, as History of Wolves in particular really harshed my Sunday mellow as I tried to finish the last few chapters last weekend—but I still had so many questions once I finished reading, it didn’t feel like one of those Sad-But-Important-Book experiences. It just made me sad.

So who would enjoy this book? If you like great writing, Emily Fridlund is definitely going to be a writer to watch, as this is a debut. If you like ambiguity and putting together subtle clues, or if you’re the kind of person who is fine resting in the tension, so to speak, History of Wolves will probably be a home run for you. For my part, I think I’m going to shelve my Ambiguity Hat for a while and put on my Fun Diversion Beret.

With regards to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the review copy. On sale now!

A mesmerising book, but I’m still not sure why!!

Normally, when I start a review I find it relatively easy to give a reasonably intelligent synopsis of the story, but somehow, this is not the case with this very brilliant but different story. Maybe my best description would be to say that I felt a bit like I would if Linda was my friend and I discovered where she hid her diary and kept sneaking back to learn more about her life story, especially the bit about the year she turned fifteen.

The story manages to grow as if it were a tree as it starts from a small shoot and then starts sending out branches. A branch maybe to the right; say when she describes her parents and their living conditions. The next off-shoot maybe to talk about a specific girl, Lily, who was in her class and the history teacher Lily accused of inappropriate behaviour, resulting in him being fired. In the meantime; the main stem; which is about Paul the four-year-old son of Patra and Leo. They have built a summer house on the edge of the lake near to where Linda’s unconventional parents live and Linda becomes Paul’s “governess” while Patra types up her husband’s latest scientific book. Scattered amongst these stories are other branches, some shorter than others, when Linda writes about her life in the present time. She’s left school, attended college and has moved away from home however, this one year; when she was fifteen, that had the biggest impact on her life.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced edge of your seat type novel, then this is not for you. However, you will find buried in the pages, how one year in this fifteen-year-old’s life needed it for her to write about it so that she can make some kind of sense of it.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

The teenage years are difficult no matter what your background, but Linda/Mattie has grown up in a commune in the woods of northern Minnesota making her an automatic outsider to the 'mean girls' at her school. Her parents aren't at all nurturing though I get the sense that her father wishes he could be but just doesn't know how. The mother seems to be self-indulgent and bitter that their great commune experiment failed.

Linda attaches herself to a young mother and child who are staying in the area. It's obvious she looks to Patra as a role model of sorts and their relationship is disrupted by the arrival of Patra's husband. It was interesting to see the close relationship between Linda and the child Paul since Linda hadn't really had any experience with children before being the youngest in the commune.

The book is very well written and though it jumps back and forth in years of Linda's life, it's easy to follow. I was surprised Linda didn't seem more upset by the incident with Paul (no spoilers) though it was a pivotal point in her life.

I have mixed feelings as to whether I really liked the book, but I found it intriguing and interesting.

I was a little disappointed in this book. I loved the foreshadowing but felt it took too long to tell the tale. I loved the main character, Madeline/Linda and her life in the woods. I thought Petra was so wussy. It bothered me that Linda wasn't sure that her parents were really her parents.

This wasn't my usual cup of tea and I was originally drawn to this book by the title and description.
After receiving a Copy from Netgalley I decided to give it a shot.
The writing was good and the story caught my interest however I was left with the feeling that it was unfinished. The end fell flat making me feel like the story had no purpose but to be an exercise in writing.

Whilst I do agree that History of Wolves deserves a place on the bookshelf of literary fiction you should take a look at, and indeed it is quite a remarkable read. However I did feel as if it lacked a certain purpose, moral of the story and perhaps even direction.

What I mean by that is the many unanswered questions the reader still has about Madeleine, also known as Linda and/or Maddie throughout the book. By the way, the fact her name isn’t a constant factor is indicative of her lack of identity. Is the reader supposed to ponder her guilt or lack of it? Or is it about the neglect she suffers or the loneliness she experiences?

Then there is the whole situation with Lily, and perhaps to a certain degree also with Patra. The flutterings of curiosity and sexuality combined with the colourful imagination of Linda. Is the pity and concern she feels for Lily also in part jealousy and a need to be something less than invisible to her peers and the people around her.

The relationship between her and Paul is sometimes sibling-like and then at other times Linda becomes the pseudo parent. Although the reader gets the impression that her parents are never really bothered where she is and what she is doing, she passes on the things she has learnt from her father to the child in her charge.

Fridlund circles around the topic of paedophilia in an interesting way. You get the vulnerable victim, the predator and the possible scenario, and yet the author also levels out the blame by introducing the awakening sexuality of the possible victims and the positions they want to escape from. So, despite the fact the ‘alleged’ predator is actually one who is thinking of it and tempted, Fridlund makes him the victim at the same time. Of course, this is a double edged sword and leads us into the murky waters of victim-blaming.

I think some of the most interesting passages are the events on the day of the traumatic event. As a reader I began to question what her intentions were and whether her decisions could all be excused by innocence, inexperience and age. In fact, and that is my only problem with the book, I wondered what exactly the author was trying to say. What exactly does she want to leave the reader with? There are so many paths and moral questions, that Linda often seems to slip into the cracks in between all of them. I guess that is the biggest statement of all, how disposable, forgettable and unimportant Madeleine-Linda is and most importantly feels in the grand scheme of things.

As I said, it is definitely worth the read. The more a book gets me waffling and thinking, the more I think the author has done their job.
*Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my copy of History of Wolves.*

“My name was Madeline, but at school I was called Linda, or Commie, or Freak.”

This is an unconventional coming of age story of 15-year old loner Linda, daughter of aging, largely absent hippies who leave Linda alone to ‘do her own thing’. She becomes entwined with a family who moves in across the lake in their isolated wooded surroundings. As Linda’s relationship with them grows, it becomes disturbing and more uncomfortable as time goes by and I began to feel apprehensive about where the story was headed. Religion plays an ever-present role, clearly impacting character choices via twisted beliefs.

Fridlund’s writing capability in this debut novel shines at times. She has a talent for fresh metaphors, her prose casual and inventive. There were many beautiful words but a few odd turns where the story randomly shifts.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"And what's the difference between what you think and what you end up doing?"

To be quite honest, this was a hard read for me. A curious read. At times, the novel was just too quirky, cerebral and meandering for my taste. We've all read those books that are chock full of symbolism and plot points that you feel like you should understand but like a word that you are desperately trying to remember, it's just ever so slightly out of reach. This is one of those books. I couldn't ever fully wrap my head around the parallel story lines of Madeline/Linda's (interchanging name never explained) relationship with the Gardners and her non-relationship with Lily Holburn, making the ending just that much more maddening to me. And I spent the whole time wondering if everything was meant to be so obscure - which also results in a disconnect with the reader (or at least this reader). But as always, I aim to find what was done really well here. This is after all, someone's labor of love and I am never comfortable thrashing someone's work. Reading is, and always will be, subjective. The author deftly conveys the portrait of a lonely, disengaged teenager navigating uncomfortably through life. "Instead I stood under scalding water in the shower for one magnificent minute, letting needles of water pluck open some feeling of woe, some feeling of desolation I hadn't known I'd felt. A capsized feeling, a sense of the next thing already coming." The descriptions of her jaunts through the woods imparting her love of nature to Paul are also particularly effective. And of course, I always appreciate learning something new - even if the idea of Christian Scientists shunning medical care for their children is such an anathema to me.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

Linda lives in the deep north woods of rural Minnesota with her hippie parents who may not be her parents. She goes to school and has a teacher who may be a pedophile but gives her high marks on a report about wolves. She babysits a 4 yrs old whose parents may have let him die because their religious beliefs don't allow doctoring. Everyone is hiding their deep, dark, damaging secrets.

This was kind of a weird flowing book, the story would swell and move ... then deflate and drag. I nearly gave up on it a couple times.

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (1st novel)
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Release Date: January 3, 2017
Length: 288 pages

Single Sentence Summary: Fourteen-year-old Linda lives a lonely existence at home and at school, so when a young family moves in nearby and welcomes her into their home Linda is ready to hold their secrets.

Primary Characters: Linda – (actually Madeline, “but at school called Linda or Commie or Freak.”) Linda is 14/15 and leads a solitary life with her fading hippie parents at an abandoned commune in the woods of Northern Minnesota. The Gardners – a family of three, mother, father and 4-year old son, who move in across the lake from Linda.

Synopsis: Linda was born on a commune in Northern Minnesota. The commune disintegrated when she was young, leaving only Linda and her parents living among the ramshackle cabins. Their home, miles from town, isolates Linda in many way both physical and emotional. Her parents leave Linda largely to herself. She is a girl ripe for any sort of attention or friendship. Early in the story Linda makes a connection with her history teacher only to lose it to another student, Lily. When the teacher is later accused of possessing child pornography, Linda is deeply affected. She becomes obsessed with Lily.

Relief comes in the form of a young family moving in just across the lake from Linda. The Gardners look to be the ideal family: loving, laughing, slathering attention on their son. With the dad away for work, Linda becomes a sort of friend to his wife, Patra, and babysitter to his son, Paul. Over the spring, Linda spends a lot of time with the Gardners. The family, and Patra in particular, both fascinate and worry her. She wants to be a part of what they are while sensing that something is not quite right. The choices everyone makes over that short time period haunt Linda and leave her trying to make sense of her world and theirs.

Review: History of Wolves is a coming-of-age story that has much going for it, starting with Emily Fridlund’s powerful and often beautiful writing.

“Winter collapsed on us that year. It knelt down, exhausted, and stayed.”

Her descriptions of both settings and characters are exquisite.

“Without saying a word, Lily could make people feel encouraged, blessed. She had dimples on her cheeks, nipples that flashed like signs from God through her sweater. I was flat-chested, plain as a banister. I made people feel judged.”

The author tells the story of Linda’s youth, from the distance and insight of the character’s 37-year-old self. The distance gives perspective on the events of the spring with the Gardners as well as the year leading up to it. Linda, as an adult, tries to make sense of the choices she made as a teen. Yet even as an adult, her choices are still driven by the girl she was at 15. I found myself aching for the teenage Linda, but much less sympathetic to the adult. I wanted the adult Linda to better understand the child, and the adult to be allowed to move past that spring.

For me, the real flaw in History of Wolves was that it meandered. There were too many odd pieces that weren’t clearly tied together and the story bounced around those pieces almost indiscriminately. In the midst of the Gardner story, it would move to Linda as an adult, to her fascination with Lily, or to her near obsession with her high school history teacher. The connection between all these parts was not clear. If the narrator had been 14-year-old Linda, that would have played out better, made more sense, but I found it frustrating in a 37-year-old narrator.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

A relentlessly peculiar, obtuse, and ultimately entirely moving coming of age tale, History of Wolves is a painfully impressive debut from Emily Fridlund. 14 year old oddball Linda (well, mostly 14 the novel slips and slides through time effortlessly and without warning) spends most of her time not with other high school students, but with her new neighbor, a young mother and her 4 year old son. The book explores rather effectively the bridge between thought and action, who we (and those around us) are versus who we like to think we are.

The Good:

1. I like the lack of articles in the title. It isn't A History of Wolves or The History of Wolves. There's something solid about a title that doesn't need the emphasis on articles. I don't know -- it stands on its own two feet or something.

2. I've never been to Minnesota. History of Wolves isn't chock-a-block overflowing with description. But everything, every place mentioned, the high school, the lake, the cabin, the summer house, the court house, the motel in Duluth, the apartment, every single place our narrator goes, I could see it. Perfectly. Crisp as a fresh cold apple. Fantasy or sci-fi world-building authors, take note: Fridlund's judicious descriptions are what you should study. No one likes being drowned in adjectives. No one needs it.

The Bad:

1. Take a suitcase. Stuff it full. Zip it up. Now unzip and put twice as much in again. Zip it up. But still, unzip and add more. And more. And more and more and more and more.

History of Wolves is this overstuffed suitcase. There's too much in this book, for plot and background and just general stuff. Then, for a book that overflows with possibilities, it reads so slowly, so very close to tediously. And then the background may be more interesting than the story up front. The commune. The relationship with her mother. Lily and the pedophile. In filling out the background world of the story, too much wants to bubble up to the surface. The zipper strains. The suitcase explodes going round and round on the luggage carousel. The story needs a trim back on all the wonderfulness of the background. Then maybe give the background its own story.

The Ugly: There's nothing ugly here. But to not have The Ugly would unbalance my review. So The Ugly. Empty. Null set.

So I liked History of Wolves and I didn't like it. But I wish for Fridlund the best. I think she deserves it. But I also think she'll be improving as she writes more. I think her potential is somewhere in the stars.

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund went on sale January 3, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This beautiful and heartbreaking novel richly deserves the praise it has received. Fridlund has created a wonderful character in Maddie/Linda; her confusion, pain, and regret radiates throughout the book in a way one seldom sees. The plot unfolds slowly, with bits and pieces of the tragedy peeking through. The setting is perfectly rendered- you will be able to see, smell, and feel the woods, the lake, the people. I'm very grateful to Grove Atlantic for the ARC because this is one that will stick with me. It's so thoughtful and generous, even to the individuals who might otherwise have been made out as villains - recognizing that people are all conflicted. I'm really looking forward to whatever Fridlund writes next. This might be termed a literary novel by some but it deserves wide distribution. Please try it.

Coolly opaque yet aching with need, the heroine of Fridlund’s debut novel exists on the fringe of poor white territory in North Minnesota while remaining at one remove from it.

That character is Madeline Furston, also known as Linda, a teenager attuned to the woods where she lives, in hardscrabble circumstances, withtwo adults – ex communards who may or may not be her parents. There is habit in this household but little that would pass for family love, yet Linda’s heart is full of compassion – for the wildlife and kept dogs outdoors; for the few folk she knows, like troubled school mate Lily; and for the pale child Paul, a son of incomers with a summer home on the local lake, for whom she starts babysitting.

Attracted to four-year-old Paul’s mother Patra, Linda is nevertheless suspicious of his father, Leo, and rightly so. Canny though in some senses she may be, Linda – unfamiliar with intimacy – can’t penetrate the mystery of this marriage. When she senses something awry, she is powerless to intervene.

A little like Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, Fridlund’s novel is a version of blue collar fiction, exploring life from the perspective of a social outsider, drawn to yet unfamiliar with middle-class mores. Linda is alive in the woods, canoeing the lakes, making a project about wolves. Her response to others is silent, reserved, detached, but unexpectedly empathetic as in the case of a teacher accused of child pornography. Searching for attachment, she fashions alliances, but simple redemptions are not for this story.

Fridlund’s tale is a somber yet lyrical coming-of-age exploration which considers the complex meaning of connection and responsibility. Startling in its avoidance of sentimentality, this is intriguing work from an exciting new talent.

Think of Emma Cline's "The Girls" and remove Charles Manson, add a wooded small town and a mysterious new family across the lake. I thought this was so good and eerie - left me unsettled in the best sort of way.