A riveting family saga, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle explores the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild.
Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong companion. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelle's once-peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm - and into Edgar's mother's affections.
Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his father's death, but his plan backfires, spectacularly. Edgar flees into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm. He comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him. But his need to face his father's murderer, and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs, turn Edgar ever homeward.
Wroblewski is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes - the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a ghost made of falling rain - create a family saga that is at once a brilliantly inventive retelling of Hamlet, an exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable modern classic.

From the Hardcover edition.

Publisher:

Ecco Press

ISBN:

9780061374234

Publication date:

September 2009

Additional format:

Printed on deckle edged paper

Length:

203mm

Width:

135mm

Thickness:

27mm

Weight:

499g

Pages:

562

Readership:

Age: 14 - 18

I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. . . . It's a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate. . . . I closed the book with that regret readers feel only after experiencing the best stories: It's over, you think, and I won't read another one this good for a long, long time. . . . There's never been a book quite like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I thought of Hamlet . . . and Watership Down, and The Night of the Hunter, and The Life of Pi-but halfway through, I put all comparisons aside and let it just be itself. . . . Wonderful, mysterious, long and satisfying: readers who pick up this novel are going to enter a richer world. I envy them the trip. I don't re-read many books, because life is too short. I will be re-reading this one.
--Stephen King
I doubt we'll see a finer literary debut this year. . . . David Wroblewski's got storytelling talent to burn and a big, generous heart to go with it.
--Richard Russo
Don't let the book's massive size fool you: This is a good old-fashioned coming-of-age yarn.Grade: A
-- Entertainment Weekly
.,. here is a big-hearted novel you can fall into, get lost in and finally emerge from reluctantly, a little surprised that the real world went on spinning while you were absorbed...grand and unforgettable.
-- Washington Post Book World
The most enchanting debut novel of the summer....a great, big, mesmerizing read, audaciously envisioned as classic Americana...One of the great pleasures of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is its free-roaming, unhurried progress, enlivened by the author's inability to write anything but guilelessly captivatingprose.
-- New York Times
Whether you read for the beauty of language or for the intricacies of plot, you will easily fall in love with David Wroblewski's generous, almost transcendentally lovely debut novel...the scope of this book, its psychological insight and lyrical mastery, make it one of the best novels of the year....
--O Magazine
In this beautifully written novel, David Wroblewski creates a remarkable hero who lives in a world populated as much by dogs as by humans, governed as much by the past as by the present. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a passionate, absorbing and deeply surprising debut.
--Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street
A literary thriller with commercial legs, this stunning debut is bound to be a bestseller.
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Edgar Sawtelle is a boy without a voice, but his world, populated by the dogs his family breeds, is anything but silent. This is a remarkable story about the language of friendship -- a language that transcends words.
--Dalia Sofer, bestselling author of The Septembers of Shiraz
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a wooly, unlikely, daring book, and wildly satisfying.
--Mark Doty, New York Times bestselling author of Dog Years
A stately, wonderfully written debut novel...[Wroblewski] takes an intense interest in his characters; takes pains to invest emotion and rough understanding in them; and sets them in motion with graceful language... a boon for dog lovers, and for fans of storytelling that eschews flash. Highly recommended.
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
An excruciatingly captivating read...Ultimately liberating, though tragic andheart-wrenching, this book is unforgettable.
-- Library Journal (starred review)
The Great American Novel is something like a unicorn -- rare and wonderful, and maybe no more than just a notion. Yet every few years or so, we trip across some semblance of one.... [an] extraordinary debut.
-- Elle
The author's spellbinding first novel...is nearly impossible to put down.
-- Kirkus Reviews, First Fiction Special

From the Hardcover edition.