David Wroblewski

The day after I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, I saw the author speak at Politics & Prose and got my book signed. He was very nice, and you could tell how much he loved the novel and what it represented. He grew up in Wisconsin, but not the same area where the book was set, and was proud to have created a novel that speaks for the state. He did extensive research on the town of Mellen, which is near where the Sawtelle farm in located. He told me that the "hot mix duck massacre" depicted in the book, where a flock of ducks died when they dove onto a newly paved road they mistook for water, is based on a real incident he came across during this research. He spent a lot of time with each participant afterwards and signed the books generously (the last author I saw at P&P zipped through the line as fast as possible).

David described the book as "a boy and his dog story for grownups," drawing inspiration from sources like Call of the Wild. A key theme in the book is the interplay between the wild and the domestic and how these ideas aren't as distinct as we imagine. This plays out with the dogs explicitly, but also the environment, which, being quite rural, feels like the "edge" of human settlement.