Product Description

A literary debut of stark and striking brilliance -- a coming-of-age story, set in the remote wilderness of northern Wisconsin. Born mute and able to communicate only by sign, the brilliant Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents Gar and Trudy. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomised by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong companion. But when his beloved father mysteriously dies, Edgar blames himself, if only because his muteness left him unable to summon help. Grief-stricken and bewildered by his mother's desperate affair with her dead husband's brother, Edgar's world unravels one spring night when, in the falling rain, he sees his father's ghost. After a botched attempt to prove that his uncle orchestrated Gar's death, Edgar flees into the Chequamegon wilderness leading three yearling dogs. Yet his need to face his father's murderer, and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs, turn Edgar ever homeward. When he returns, nothing is as he expects, and Edgar must choose between revenge or preserving his family legacy!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2811 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'I read it last summer and I could not stop. It's also a first novel, a true labour of love.' Audrey Niffenegger, Guardian (Book of the Year) 'Stately and expansive narrative. Wroblewski's story builds on foundations provided by past literature but has an originality all its own.' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times '[A] most enchanting debut novel. A great, big, mesmerising read. Pick up this book and expect to feel very, very reluctant to put it down.' New York Times 'A big-hearted novel you can fall into, get lost in and finally emerge from reluctantly. Tender and suspenseful ... grand and unforgettable.' Washington Post 'I flat-out loved "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle".' Stephen King 'An incredible journey that seems to have everything going for it; the beauty and flair of a great literary novel, the scale and pacing of a fantasy epic, and the absorbing thrill-ride of any glorious rites-of-passage adventure from our collective childhoods.' Sunday Business Post 'Remarkable.' Uncut magazine (Book of the Year) 'I flat-out loved "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle", and spent twelve happy evenings immersed in the world David Wroblewski has created. As I neared the end, I kept finding excuses to put the book aside for a little, not because I didn't like it, but because I liked it too much; I didn't want it to end. 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. 'In truth, there's never been a book quite like "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle". I thought of "Hamlet" when I was reading it (of course...and in this version, Ophelia turns out to be a dog named Almondine), 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. 'I'm pretty sure this book is going to be a bestseller, but unlike some, it deserves to be. 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 'An incredibly journey that seems to have everything going for it; the beauty and flair of a great literary novel, the scale and pacing of a fantasy epic, and the absorbing thrill-ride of any glorious rites-of-passage adventure from our collective childhoods.' Sunday Business Post

HarperCollins

‘The plot echoes Hamlet, but it is the writing that makes it one of the best books I have read in the last few years.’
The Boston Globe

'Whether you read for the beauty of the language or the intricacies of the plot, you will easily fall in love with X’s generous, almost transcendentally lovely debut novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ... The scope of this novel, its psychological insight and lyrical mastery make it one of the best novels of the year, and a perfect, comforting joy of a book for the summer.’
Oprah Magazine

'...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. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is an enormous but effortless read, trimmed down to the elements of a captivating story about a mute boy and his dogs.
Washington Post Book World

'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. Oof! What’s this? Why, it’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a sprawling skein of a yarn about a farm nestled up against the forest primeval, aka the Chequamegon in northern Wisconsin, a place where the drama of nature unfolds daily, ceaselessly—recorded here with preternatural awareness, as if witnessed for the very first time…the story’s both more complicated than it sounds and yet boldly, bald-facedly what it is. How Edgar in time goes about breaking this domestic impasse and strikes out into the wide world will carry you through this novel’s 560-odd pellucid, mythos-riddled pages and leave you crying for more.
Elle Magazine

'Sustained by a momentum that has the crushing inevitability of fate, the propulsive will have readers sucked in all the way through breathtaking final scenes.'
Publishers Weekly

'A stately, wonderfully written debut novel... (Wroblewski) takes an intense interest 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 Review

HarperCollins

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 friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' 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. Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar 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.

David Wroblewski is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes--the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain--create a riveting family saga, a brilliant exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable modern classic.

Praise from Stephen King

"I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and spent twelve happy evenings immersed in the world David Wroblewski has created. As I neared the end, I kept finding excuses to put the book aside for a little, not because I didn't like it, but because I liked it too much; I didn't want it to end. Dog-lovers in particular will find themselves riveted by this story, because the canine world has never been explored with such imagination and emotional resonance. Yet in the end, this isn't a novel about dogs or heartland America--although it is a deeply American work of literature. It's a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate. Yet in the person of Edgar Sawtelle, a mute boy who takes three of his dogs on a brave and dangerous odyssey, Wroblewski does articulate them, and splendidly. 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.

"In truth, there's never been a book quite like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I thought of Hamlet when I was reading it, 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.

"I'm pretty sure this book is going to be a bestseller, but unlike some, it deserves to be. It's also going to be the subject of a great many reading groups, and when the members take up Edgar, I think they will be apt to stick to the book and forget the neighborhood gossip.

"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."

Double Life, With Dogs: An Amazon Exclusive Essay by David Wroblewski

We write the stories we wish we could read. There's no other reason to do it, to spend years pacing around your basement, mumbling, pecking at a keyboard, turning your back on a world that offers such a feast of delicious fruits. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle came about because some time ago I wished I could read a novel about a boy and his dog, one that integrated our contemporary knowledge of canine behavior, cognition, and origins with my experience of living with dogs; if possible, something flavored with the uncynical Midwestern sense of heart and purpose so familiar from my childhood (and something which, in truth, I've spent much my adult life being slightly ashamed of, as if either heart or purpose were embarrassing attributes for a grown-up to display). I'd recently come to know a good dog, maybe the best dog I'd ever met, and the subject of people and dogs and ethics and character suddenly seemed urgent. But when I went looking for such a story, I had to go back almost a hundred years, back to Jack London's Call of the Wild. That was a surprise. A little while after that, an idea for a story came to me — not the whole thing, but enough to start.

I read novels because they create within me a double-life, something no other art form can or even aspires to do. I'm a slow reader. It takes me a couple weeks to finish a good sized novel. But when that novel is working for me, I wake up mornings with parallel concerns, speculating on what is going to happen both in my immediate, personal world and what is going to happen in the inner, secret world I’ve constructed out of the novel. At odd points during the day a kind of daydream presses itself into my consciousness, a daydream having to do with the story — a turn of phrase that insists on more consideration, a detail supplied by my own memory that must also have been true, even if it wasn't on the page. By chance, my gaze is caught by the sight of a map of, let’s say, Indiana, and because the novel I am reading is set in Indiana, I pause and locate the story’s setting on the map with my finger. I notice the silky texture of the printer’s ink on the paper. Almost incidentally, my parallel life has acquired a latitude and a longitude.

Writing is like that, too. When you are in the middle of an unfinished story, you carry the narrative frontier through the world with you like a seine, capturing anything relevant that floats by. Some bits end up in your story. Most bits lodge only in your memory. I'm sitting on the porch of a hotel in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico as write this. A friendly dog is sniffing around in the bushes a few feet away. He comes and goes and comes back again. I want to leave my laptop and crouch down and call him over, but I won't. He's probably not unlike the village dogs that lived in this area 1000 years ago. I have no idea if this dog might show up in some later story of mine, but I know for the moment I'm struck by his rough, brindled fur, the white tip of his tail, the pleasant set of his lips, as he wanders what he clearly considers his home territory, panting softly in the May sunshine. I'm reminded of how my dog Lola sometimes sleeps in the sun until she gets so hot she pants, and I grow alarmed and walk over and lay a hand on her side, then shoo her into the house. I'm reminded of the stray dogs that live among the ruins at Pompeii, Italy; dogs that sleep on the weather-worn stone streets, unconcerned and apparently unaware of the thousands of tourists streaming past them each hour. They seem as ancient as their surroundings.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a boy and his dog story for grownups. If I were looking for this book, the way I once did, that's all I would want to know. Hide the dust jacket away. Don't look at it again until you close the book for the last time. Read the blurbs afterward, like I do, when I need someone to talk to right away. A novel is a daydream machine. I wish for you a long, slow read, a two-week daydream. A double-life, with dogs.

Customer Reviews

One of the best books I have read this year - maybe this century - maybe ever
I'm not going to write a long review because I don't want you to spend hours reading it. I want you to go off and read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" instead and I can't help thinking every second you're not doing that, you're missing out.

This is a book of incredible power: it is beautifully almost poetically written, yet it is also very raw and personable. The plotline follows Hamlet, so you can guess vaguely what is going to happen, yet every page delivers a shock. As the denouement came ever closer I found myself reading more slowly, feeling sick with nerves.

Edgar, the protagonist, is a mute boy living in a closeknit family which breeds and trains dogs. The happy unit is blown apart by the sudden and shocking death of his father. As his uncle becomes ever closer to his mother, Edgar becomes more and more isolated. Upon his return, justice is served in a most unexpected fashion, no matter how well you know The Bard's story.

I will be buying this book for everyone I know. It left me breathless, tearful and overwhelmed; a real rollercoaster of a novel, the like of which I have not read in a long time. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Good idea ... but did it have to be so long???
It seems a little unfair to give this book just 3 stars, it was an original idea and I was interested by it, but it wasn't for me an amazing 5 star, and it fell short of the almost perfect 4 star rating. Perhaps 3 and a half stars would be more appropriate.

Like I've said, the concept for the book was great. A mute boy and his dogs, a ghost story, things not quite as they seem, all very intriguing and I did want to keep reading, but at times it was a chore.

At over 550 pages, this is a long slog and it suffers for it. The book moves at a snail's pace at times. Far too long was spent dwelling on Edgar's early life before the story picked up around the middle of the book. But even then it was dragged out. I read a good book in a few days, but I had to force myself to keep picking this up over a few weeks, although I did read that last 150 or so pages in one afternoon because the pace picked up dramatically.

You should also beware if, like me, you like to know how a story ends. I don't want to be left guessing, but for me there were huge question marks at the end and I felt a bit cheated after having put so much effort into reading it! This is quite a personal point of view, however, and so you should bear that in mind.

All in all I am glad to have read the story because it was interesting but you have to be prepared to knuckle down and put the effort into reading it.

Why only 566 pages?
I don't really know what makes a 'Great American Novel' as judged by other reviewers. We all have completely different requirements but this particular book, in my view, comes close to being just such a novel.

It fits the bill in the traditional sense that it is certainly a long and eventful journey through the life of a disadvantaged boy growing up in the wilds of North America - with the added bonus of his three dogs around him. If you love dogs, then read this book but there is a great deal more. And it's this 'more' that makes the book.

That the writing is finely tuned, the characterisation keenly developed should be expected but the feeling of empathy the author manages to create with the reader is such that you find yourself immersed in this life - the happiness at one end of the emotional spectrum, the sadness at the other, so much so that, despite the 566 pages, before you've reached 500 you are wishing if only there were 500 more.

You can read about the detail of the story in the publisher's blurb. However, I don't rate Hamlet by way of any sort of comparison. This book stands on its own - with all the emotions a truly great author can engender. I urge you to buy the book and make the same journey as I just did. I'm sure you cannot possibly be disappointed.