Review of “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle”
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel by David Wroblewski
My review
rating: 1 of 5 stars
So far this book is okay. The first few chapters were a bit slow and the one about the miscarriage was just plain throat-grabbing sad. I’m not a pet person so the adolescent attraction to animals is totally lost on me.
I would not compare this book to the works of Steinbeck as Oprah has (there’s just too much gimmickry in it). But it is written very well and I look forward to what Wroblewski has in store for an ending.
Is this the newest “Great American Novel?” No. Using the Hamlet story line and tapping the American love affair with pets make this book only markedly different from other animal romance novels. This is just a well written book that will float away into obscurity (and into the discount aisle at the local bookstore) once the hype goes away.
* Update *
I finished this book last night. I was so hoping for an ending that brought the book together. I was looking forward ending that somehow tied into what the old lady told him in the store. But that did not happen. The book ended with dull thud where the protagonists barely battled one another. In the end of this book everything goes up in smoke. The barn, the end of the kid’s journey, and one of the biggest opportunities to write a great novel.
Disappointed? Yes. But really, I feel cheated. Cheated in that I had to read all the way through this fat book just to find out that the author lost all creativity when he stopped ripping off the story lines from Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy.
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