We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.
History of Wolves
On sale
23rd February 2017
Price: £19.99
Man Booker Prize, 2018
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
How far would you go to belong?
Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in an ex-commune beside a lake in the beautiful, austere backwoods of northern Minnesota. The other girls at school call Linda ‘Freak’, or ‘Commie’. Her parents mostly leave her to her own devices, whilst the other inhabitants have grown up and moved on.
So when the perfect family – mother, father and their little boy, Paul – move into the cabin across the lake, Linda insinuates her way into their orbit. She begins to babysit Paul and feels welcome, that she finally has a place to belong.
Yet something isn’t right. Drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand, Linda must make a choice. But how can a girl with no real knowledge of the world understand what the consequences will be?
Read by Caitlin Thorburn
(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group Ltd
How far would you go to belong?
Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in an ex-commune beside a lake in the beautiful, austere backwoods of northern Minnesota. The other girls at school call Linda ‘Freak’, or ‘Commie’. Her parents mostly leave her to her own devices, whilst the other inhabitants have grown up and moved on.
So when the perfect family – mother, father and their little boy, Paul – move into the cabin across the lake, Linda insinuates her way into their orbit. She begins to babysit Paul and feels welcome, that she finally has a place to belong.
Yet something isn’t right. Drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand, Linda must make a choice. But how can a girl with no real knowledge of the world understand what the consequences will be?
Read by Caitlin Thorburn
(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
So delicately calibrated and precisely beautiful that one might not immediately sense the sledgehammer of pain building inside this book. And I mean that in the best way. What powerful tension and depth
As exquisite a first novel as I've ever encountered. Poetic, complex and utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful
First thing you see is the bracing intelligence of the book's young narrator - no big-eyed sentiments for Linda, raised amid blighted ideals in the ceaseless winters and vast swamps of northern Minnesota. So observant is Linda that you trust her instantly, but it's her own search for trust, for connection even at enormous cost, that will hold you to the final hour. Emily Fridlund's language is generous and precise, her story grief-tempered and forcefully moving. History of Wolves is the loneliest thing I've read in years, and it's gorgeous. These are haunted pages
A writer with a great future ahead of her...her prose is exquisite
Reminds me of Curtis Sittenfeld...so original, a beautiful literary work
Beautifully written
Compelling ... History of Wolves stands out.
Haunting and compelling
Fridlund's writing is vivid: her natural descriptions elicit a superb sense of place
The chilling plot is only part of the mesmerising power of this assured and striking debut from this American novelist
Life offers "Linda" two simultaneous chances to fit in, although both, as we know from the start, go terribly wrong
The chilling plot is only part of the mesmerising power of this assured and striking debut from this American novelist
Reminds me of Curtis Sittenfeld...so original, a beautiful literary work" (Viv Groskop); "A writer with a great future ahead of her...her prose is exquisite" (Louise Doughty)
think Winter's Bone with less crime and more lyricism.. Fridlund is a fine writer and her work is cut through with moments of sparse beauty.
one of the most intelligent and poetic novels of the year
this is a top-notch thriller: suspicion drips like icicles in the thaw
Fridlund is a fine writer and her work is cut through with moments of sparse beauty.
Every page in this first novel echoes with grief and loneliness, yet there's a great beauty to it.