Clashing Worldviews in History of Wolves


Fifteen is a difficult age for most of us, and 15 is the age of Emily Fridlund’s main character Linda when her world falls apart in History of Wolves. 

Linda is in some ways better equipped than many to face challenges: a survivor of a disbanded hippy commune, she lives in the Minnesota woods with two people who call themselves her parents, but maybe they do only because they are the ones who remained when the commune collapsed. Linda navigates the woods with ease, strong enough in her own skin to survive and move through it and high school, complete with all their travails. Linda is written as strong, immovable, and somewhat strange.

When a new mother Patra and her child move into the house across the lake from Linda and her parents’ home, Linda is curious.  She befriends the two, eventually becoming the little boy Paul’s babysitter. We see Linda try to understand this new 4-year old creature, speak to it in ways she didn’t know she could, we see her experience her own tenderness for the first time. Everything in Fridlund’s narrative feels set on the tips of the nerves: the world created feels immediate, wild, and spring-loaded.

When Paul’s father Leo appears, he brings with him the Christian Scientist background that ultimately leads to the novel’s devastating finale. Once again, Linda must use her survival instincts to move against what Leo brings to the woods. She is ultimately unsuccessful in fending off the harm Leo has for his son, but learns much along the way, and is once again firmly grounded in a sense of right and wrong. 

It's difficult to tell if Fridlund's idea is to critique a particular religion, all religions, a more advanced society, self-righteousness, or applaud and espouse the wisdom of a more simplistic, natural life. Possibly she means to do all of this. 

Towards the end of the book, Linda writes “you couldn’t just do whatever you wanted to someone and get away with it.” This feels like the pulse behind History of Wolves. Leo is just one of the people in the book Linda could be writing to, and Linda stands as the one who must witness, and fight against, their tendencies to believe they can get away with doing whatever they want. 

Thanks to Ellie Garcia for recommending History of Wolves.


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