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'Hamlet' goes to the dogs in this page-turner

By Jenny Shank, Special to the Rocky

Published June 5, 2008 at 6:30 p.m.

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David Wroblewski's story, filled with details on dogs and breeding, was inspired by the five years his mother bred dogs on a Wisconsin farm when he was a child.

Photo by Ellen Jaskol / The Rocky

David Wroblewski's story, filled with details on dogs and breeding, was inspired by the five years his mother bred dogs on a Wisconsin farm when he was a child.

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Colorado-based writer David Wroblewski has been at work at his sprawling debut novel for more than a decade, and the results of his painstaking care are evident in the fascinating world that he's created. His story, filled with fluid, descriptive prose, quickly transports the reader into its timeless setting and rich atmosphere, making the pages fly by.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is the tale of an only child, born on a Wisconsin dog-breeding farm who can hear but not speak. Edgar grows up helping his father, Gar, and his mother, Trudy, with their business breeding and training an extraordinary type of dog, known as "Sawtelle dogs."

These animals are a strain that Edgar's grandfather began creating in the 1920s by mating dogs of any breed that evinced exceptional qualities - of loyalty, attentiveness or any other attribute a great dog might have. In addition to the breeding (tracked through meticulous records), Trudy trains the dogs to exacting standards of obedience.

Edgar's lifelong companion is one such dog, named Almondine, who has watched over him since she realized his mother could not hear the small sounds the infant Edgar made in lieu of crying. From the dog's perspective, Wroblewski writes: "The moment she'd walked into the room, she'd heard the breaths coming from the blanket, the ones that nearly matched his mother's breathing, and so it took her a moment to understand that in this new sound, she was hearing distress - to realize that this near-silence was the sound of him wailing."

A few chapters are written from the point of view of Almondine or other dogs, but thankfully they're not gimmicky or overly cute. Indeed, the dog-perspective chapters are such natural extensions of this canine-focused narrative that they seem as unaffected as when Tolstoy, in War and Peace, switches for a paragraph or two to depict a scene through the eyes of a horse.

Edgar's parents don't know sign language, so he learns to communicate with a mix of ASL, invented signs and written notes. Since he was little, Edgar's primary duties were to name and socialize puppies, and eventually Gar gives Edgar a litter of his own to train.

The book takes its time, and the first hundred pages settle the reader into the milieu of this farm with few signs of the drama to come except for the appearance of Edgar's stormy uncle Claude, back from service in the Navy. Gar tries to integrate Claude into the business, but they have one fierce quarrel too many and part ways.

The idyllic farm life comes suddenly to an end when Edgar is 14. One day, Edgar is home only with his father and discovers Gar dying on the barn floor. Unable to communicate on the telephone with the operator, Edgar blacks out in his shock and terror and forgets much of what he witnessed surrounding his father's death. After the funeral, Trudy is stricken with pneumonia and Edgar skips school to help keep the kennels running; eventually overwhelmed, they reluctantly summon Claude for help.

Claude grew up on the farm and knows all about caring for dogs. He becomes indispensable, and begins to win Trudy's affections. Meanwhile, Edgar broods and discovers evidence that leads him to believe Claude killed Gar.

From this point, much of the plot structure mirrors that of Hamlet, with ghostly visitations, a murdered father, a mother who takes the side of the murderer and a play-within-the-play that re-enacts the murder (with dogs taking the place of puppets) - all reimagined to take place at the Sawtelle farm. Wroblewski doesn't try to hide the influence - he's even named some of his characters after those in Hamlet: Claude for Claudius, Trudy for Queen Gertrude.

One of the best sections of the book follows a killing-of-Polonius moment, when Edgar sets off into the Chequamegon forest with three dogs, and they learn to survive in the woods as they flee north. Wroblewski, who grew up in the area, describes the forest intimately.

Edgar doesn't turn out to be such a hot survivalist; he finally figures out a technique for breaking into the hot-dog-and-marshmallow- laden cabins of summer vacationers around a lake. But just as Hamlet returns to Denmark from his banishment to England, Edgar decides to return to the farm, and then the real fireworks ensue.

Almost all of the Hamlet elements work well in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, infusing the narrative with suspense and drama and coming off as believable and appropriate within this very different context - until the end, which, like the play, brings decimation. This ending was, of course, perfect for the story of the brooding, death- obsessed Hamlet, but doesn't come off as convincingly for Edgar Sawtelle, because the book has been filled with so many moments of dog-fueled whimsy, playfulness and adventure. I was left wondering what it all meant.

But you can't blame Wroblewski, or any other writer, for not being Shakespeare, and the somewhat- discordant ending doesn't make the journey any less engrossing. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a winning debut that will make a great read for the coming - forgive me - dog days of summer.

Jenny Shank's fiction has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review and other journals. She writes about books for NewWest.net and lives in Boulder.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

* By David Wroblewski. Ecco, 562 pages, $25.95.

* Grade: A-