History of Wolves
Madeline (or Linda or Mattie) remembers her childhood, the year she was 15 in particular, in 'A History of Wolves'. She's a lonely, insular girl. Set in the 1980s, Linda's parents are the last remaining members of a commune that was set up in rural Minnesota that fell apart before she started school. Most of the town keeps them at arms length and she has little contact with her classmates.
At the start of the novel, Linda remembers her 8th grade history teacher dying of a heart attack in class and the scandal surrounding his replacement. This is tied in with her relationship with the young family that moves into the house across the lake from her parents' and hires her as a babysitter for their son Paul.
The story is haunting. Linda is the narrator, but she doesn't give the reader a lot to work with, wandering around the central events of her story to talk about her parents, an old boyfriend, another child in the commune. There is pain and regret and love and jealousy and fondness in her memories and all of that comes through without really putting a name to her emotions. Linda is a complicated character, and like Lucy Snowe in 'Villette' doesn't trust even the reader with her full confession. Long before the full facts of the story emerge we know that something is terribly wrong, however, and we must wait for her to give us each horrible detail.
