History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

Thank you to another member for writing this month's blog.  

Most people found this book difficult to follow because it jumped back and forth in time from the teenage years of the main character, Linda, to her life as a 37-year-old woman.

We focused on 3 main ideas.

1.        The relationship between Linda, Patra and Paul and Paul’s subsequent death.

a.        Linda spied on them when she wasn’t with them.

b.       She wanted to be part of their family because she was lonely.  She seemed to see Patra as a mother figure and a friend.

c.       She did not like it when Leo, the father, returned.   Our group did not like Leo.  He was controlling of the situation, and tried to keep Patra away when he obviously knew Paul was dying.

d.       Linda got along well with Paul and taught him many things about the woods

e.       She was confused about what was happening when Paul was obviously so sick.

f.        We discussed the Christian Science belief system and how it affected the result of the trial for Paul’s death.  It seemed to us that Paul was too young to have his parents allow him to die.  Some in the group pointed out that Paul showed signs of having learned the beliefs already because of things he said and did.  We felt if Patra had been alone, she may have gotten help, since she had visited an endocrinologist about Paul, but never followed through when Leo arrived.

g.       She tried to go for help, get Tylenol for Paul, but in the end she failed to follow through.

h.       She had to testify at his trial, and because she was angry with Patra for blaming her for Paul’s death, she did not tell what she believed, that Patra was a good mother to Paul.

2.       The relationship between Linda and her parents.

a.        Because she began her life in a commune, it is difficult to tell if she was actually living with her birth parents at the time of the story, or if she was “leftover” when the commune split up.

b.       Both parents are distant, although her father spends more ‘quality” time with her.

c.       Linda and her mother do not get along, but she feels an obligation to go back and live with her mother when her father dies.

d.       We could not understand why her parents didn’t keep track of where she was and what she was doing.  She would not have spent so much time at Patra’s if they were more concerned about what she was doing.

3.       Linda’s fascination with the case involving her high school teacher Mr. Grierson and her friend Lily.