The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a mystery and coming-of-age story about a boy who develops a strong connection with the fictional line of dogs his father and grandfather bred and raised on their farmland kennel. Born mute, his communication is limited to his mother, father, and the dogs that understand his sign language, and this sparks a turning point in Edgar’s life when his father dies and his uncle returns to the farm. In an Amazon essay, the author, David Wroblewski, explains why he wrote this novel. “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….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.”
The story is compelling, moving, and written so beautifully, I reread passages just so I could enjoy them again. “Essay (one of Edgar’s dogs) circled and circled, solving again the everlasting riddle of lying down to sleep. She came to rest with her back to him, muzzle fitted high on her foreleg. Overhead the aurora flew, sheets of wild neon.” Wroblewski captures images such as this with amazing descriptive language.
It is of special interest to people who train dogs, since the Sawtelle dogs’ intelligence and training contribute to the plot twists and turns. Wroblewski eloquently explores the meaning of training in a passage where Edgar’s mother reflects on her dog training, “That was what people didn’t understand. Unless they had worked long and hard at it, most people thought training meant forcing their will on a dog. Or that training required some magical gift. Both ideas were wrong. Real training meant watching, listening, diverting a dog’s exuberance, not suppressing it. You couldn’t change a river into a sea, but you could trace a new channel for it to follow.”
This novel is one of the best I’ve ever read. Perhaps it’s my love for the way the language formed images in my mind. Perhaps it’s the plot surprises thrown out when I least expected it. Perhaps it’s my love for dogs.
