Ordinary Wolves
A Novel
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4.1 • 22 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Eskimo and white culture collide in this national bestselling novel of life in the contemporary Alaskan wilderness: "A magnificently realized story" (New York Times Book Review).
Ordinary Wolves depicts a life different from what any of us has known: Inhuman cold, the taste of rancid salmon shared with shivering sled dogs, hunkering in a sod igloo while blizzards moan overhead. But this is the only world Cutuk Hawcley has ever known. Born and raised in the Arctic, he has learned to provide for himself by hunting, fishing, and trading. And yet, though he idolizes the indigenous hunters who have taught him how to survive, when he travels to the nearby Inupiaq village, he is jeered and pummeled by the native children for being white.
When Cutuk ventures into the society of his own people, two incompatible realities collide, perfectly capturing "the contrast between the wild world and our ravaging consumer culture". In a powerful coming of age story, a young man isolated by his past must choose between two worlds, both seemingly bent on rejecting him (Louise Erdrich).
Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize
"As a revelation of the devastation modern America brings to a natural lifestyle, it's a tour de force and may be the best treatment of the Northwest and its people since Jack London's works."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the small but growing genre of ecological fiction, the great challenge is to balance political and environmental agendas with engrossing storytelling. This riveting first novel sets a new standard, offering a profound and beautiful account of a boy's attempt to reconcile his Alaskan wilderness experience with modern society. Abe Hawcly came to Alaska in search of his bush-pilot father, became enraptured with the wilderness, then moved there with his wife to live in a sod igloo and subsist on his hunting skills while he pursued his painting. Soon disenchanted with isolation and hardship, his wife abandoned him, leaving him to rear and educate their three children. Abe's youngest child, known by his I upiaq name, Cutuk, grows to manhood and learns to hunt, gaining an intimate knowledge of the frozen tundra. Eventually, Cutuk's brother, Jerry, escapes to Fairbanks, and his sister, Iris, attends college and becomes a teacher. Meanwhile, torn between two cultures, Cutuk chafes under discrimination as a white in the midst of Native Americans; he is deprived of both rights and respect by the locals. He also develops a profound curiosity about the city, but once he makes it to Anchorage, he is bewildered and confused by urban slang and modern mores. His attempts to reconcile himself to his own race fail dismally as he is drawn back to the north and the values inherent in the wilderness ("I shook my head, trying to align the years, the Taco Bells, exit ramps, rabid foxes, and this old pot"). Though Cutuk's gnawing angst occasionally grows tedious, this is a tenderly and often beautifully written first novel. As a revelation of the devastation modern America brings to a natural lifestyle, it's a tour de force and may be the best treatment of the Northwest and its people since Jack London's works. an author tour and BEA appearance should help put Kantner on the map. His own story, which is similar to Cutuk's, makes him an attractive interview prospect.
Customer Reviews
An extraordinary homage to the wildness of nature,and desire for it to remain as such.
This book is well deserving of its critical reception. So evocative of the overwhelming beauty and power of the arctic wilderness it celebrates. If you have a connection with and longing for deeply resonant nature in all its wonder and fierceness, this is a book for you.