It’s not a spoiler to tell you that the child dies, and that there is a trial afterwards because this is revealed very early in the novel. Into this loneliness comes a family and Linda becomes a babysitter to the precocious child Paul. It is Madeline/Linda/Mattie’s misfortune to be raised by ex-hippie parents who are not very interested in her. Her mother thinks she should be grateful for the beauty that surrounds her in the backwoods part of Minnesota but Linda feels the poverty. She’s just unlucky she can’t sue someone because of it… It’s the story of a misfit teenager *yawn* who fails to understand adults *yawn* and finds her own relationships handicapped ever thereafter *yawn* because she is damaged *yawn* by her experience and lets it control her destiny. And History of Wolves is not any of those things. Not so much in terms of the novel itself – but because it’s shortlisted for the Booker and some part of me still expects the Booker shortlist to deliver something important or significant or memorable or original. It turned out to be a monumental disappointment. With the blurb as a guide, I wouldn’t have spent my hard-earned on Emily Fidlund’s debut novel History of Wolves, but the publisher offered it to me and I thought, why not?
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