Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves slow-dances its way into Prairie Lights.
By Travis Coltrain
While it might seem to some that Emily Fridlund’s astonishing writing appeared out of nowhere, that would be untrue. The writer has noted that her electrifying début novel, History of Wolves, has been in the works for years.
She will read from the book at 7 p.m. today at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St.
The book’s first chapter won the Southwest Review’s McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Fiction in 2013.
In more recent years, the novelist’s popularity has continued to grow, thanks, in part to Wolves being chosen as the Winter/Spring 2017 Indies Introduce Program and featured as an Editors’ Buzz Book at BookExpo America 2016.
History of Wolves is set in 1970s northern Minnesota. The main character, Madeline — commonly called Linda — is a teenage girl who struggles with life as she meets new characters such as her new neighbors across the lake and teacher, Mr. Grierson.
One of the novel’s central stories occurs when Grierson is accused of possessing child pornography and having relations with one of his students. As a means of coping with the trauma, Linda leans toward her new neighbors for support.
“I sensed the north woods was a setting where I could stage — in weathers and seasons — Linda’s intense cycles of loneliness, desire, anger, and loss,” Fridlund said. “Writing the setting in this novel was always as much about creating an atmosphere as it was describing a concrete place.”
Fridlund does just that by going against the status quo, shining lights on normally dark and unorthodox topics. By doing this, she creates not only a mysterious atmosphere but a concrete world in which Linda’s emotions are free to run wild.
This allows the novel to transcend numerous genres by letting the tone and mood of the story shift depending on the emotions and actions of the characters.
While some of the book’s popularity can be attributed to its ability to confront typically taboo topics head-on, others find Fridlund’s refusal to follow the stereotypical narrative arc (which many contemporary coming-of-age stories seem to have) refreshing.
Crucially, unlike similar books, there is no revelation for Linda at the end; if anything, she ends up more uncertain and lost than she was initially.
All this gives the story a realistic and refreshing plot that seems so lifelike one wouldn’t hesitate to believe it is a work of nonfiction. Fridlund said that while few clear lines can be drawn between her life and the book, she did feel some of her life was reflected in the work.
“Writing fiction can sometimes feel like scavenging for images and details from a life’s worth of interacting with the world,” she said.
“For instance, the kids in Linda’s high school could be seen as bearing some resemblance to my own experience in high school in Minnesota.”
Fridlund said all characters that might have been present in her life were radically transformed to fit the story, however, so readers don’t need to worry whether there was a real Mr. Grierson in her life.
