History Of Wolves,

Girl Interrupted

Emily Fridlund’s debut novel, History Of Wolves, has made it to the Man Booker Awards shortlist; to be listed alongside some of the finest novelists is quite an achievement for a young writer.

It is a moving coming of age story about 14-year-old Melinda (shortened to Linda), whose life changes over one bitter-sweet summer. She is a lonely kid, called “commie” and “freak” by her schoolmates, because her parents used to be a part of a commune. The others drifted away, but they remained behind in the shabby lake-side shack in the middle of nowhere.  Linda, who narrates the story when she is 37, says of herself, “I was flat-chested, plain as a bannister. I made people feel judged.”

A new history teacher, Mr. Grierson gives her an opportunity to represent the school and make a presentation, that wins her a prize. It is about wolves, that gives the book it title. Linda gets fixated on Mr. Grierson, even when he is fired on charges of pedophilia, on the complaint of a dyslexic student, Lily.

What also causes an upheaval in Linda’s life is the family that comes to spend a summer across the lake. A young woman, Patra, is left alone with her four-year-old son, Paul, while her husband Leo does some important-sounding work in Hawaai. Patra hires Linda to babysit Paul, but it’s more because she needs someone to talk to, stuck as she is in the wilderness.

Paul is a sweet kid and comes to love Linda, but things unravel when Leo arrives. He is a Christian Scientist who has a strange power over his wife and child.  When it becomes clear that Paul is seriously ill, Leo lets him die (it’s no spoiler, the death is mentioned right at the start), because his faith does not allow medical intervention.  Later, there is a trial and Linda is summoned to testify.

The aftermath of both incidents is hazy,  what remains firmly in focus is Melinda’s state of mind. Due to her  circumstances, she is not a normal teenager, and her responses to events around her could be seen as off kilter. The novel does not follow the usual trajectory of a novel about a young girl—there is no romance, no sexual awakening, no major life-changing experience, still Linda’s future is oddly tainted by incidents in which she was just a bit player.

Maybe the book could be faulted for underplaying the drama, but she keeps up the chilly mood she sets describing the Minnesota landscape; except for a small beam when Patra befriends Linda, sunshine rarely shines on this set of damaged, wounded people. Still the book makes one care for Linda and what happens to her, and the prose is remarkably precise.

History Of Wolves

By Emily Fridlund

Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Pages: 304