I first read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (P.S.)
by David Wroblewski when it first came out, back in 2008. A friend of mine had seen an interview with the author and forwarded it to me, thinking it sounded like something I would like.I loved the book! The basic skeleton of the story is a mute boy growing up with his parents, who raise and train dogs. The dad dies while the boy is present. He tries to get help but can't, due to his muteness. There is an element of the mystical and supernatural and lots of dog lore and positing about what it means to train a dog and what dogs are capable of and what the relationship might be between dogs and people. It is a long book but I found it all fascinating and recommended it to several friends.
Fast forward a year and a half and the book club I'm in chose The Story of Edgar Sawtelle as our October book. I loaned my copy out and just got it back last week, plenty of time, I thought, to skim through and remind myself of the basics. But once I started re-reading it I couldn't stop. I didn't want to "skim through" so read it slowly, enjoying all the more the second time around.
It's one sign of a good book, I think, that you can enjoy it all over again even when you know the ending. Another sign is when I start reading slower and slower as I get to the end, because I love the characters so much I don't want to leave them. This book held true on both accounts. It's an astonishing first novel.
I hope Wroblewski is at work on another novel.
