Lone Wolf: A Novel [Hardcover]

Monday, March 19, 2012

Lone Wolf: A Novel [Hardcover]

Product Details

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books; First Edition edition (February 28, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439102740
ISBN-13: 978-1439102749
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Jodi Picoult
List Price : ~~$28.00~~
Price : $16.15
You Save : $11.85 (42%)

Customer Reviews

Jodi Picoult, is an author known for her novels dealing with complex and controversial issues, Her 19th novel, Lone Wolf, just released. The story for the most part takes place in Beresford, New Hampshire, and once again, it's a story which packs a punch.
When Cara Warren, age 17, calls her father, Luke to pick her up after being out with friends who have had a bit too much to drink, father and daughter are involved in a serious automobile accident. Where Cara recovers from her injuries after surgery, her father is not so lucky. Luke has suffered a TMI (traumatic brain injury) and has only a 10% chance of recovery. He is being kept alive by life support -- a ventilator and feeding tube.
Luke is divorced from Cara's mom Georgie, and has been estranged from their son Edward for the last six years. Edward, left home at age 18, after an incident involving his father Luke. He left a note for his mother, but never bothered to said goodbye to his father. When Edward receives a frantic call from his mother, Georgie, informing him about his sister and father's accident, Edward takes a 24 hour flight home from Bangkok, Thailand where he has been living and teaching.
With no legal advance directives in place for Luke, the siblings find themselves at odds over whether or not to end their father's life, and a legal battle ensues. To complicate matters, Edward locates a handwritten note of his fathers, giving him the authority to make decisions for him if he were ever unable to make them for himself. Edward was just 15 at the time that both parties signed the note. It was signed at a time when Luke, a man with a Zoology degree who loved the great outdoors, had decided to leave his family to spend (2) years in the Canadian forest living among the wolves and studying wolf migration. The same man who use to tell his children that if he could have chosen to never interact with humans again he would have. --- According to Luke, "animals don't disappoint as humans do."
----"A wolf pack is like the Mafia, everyone has a position in it; everyone is expected to pull it's own weight."
----"My father taught me wolves can read emotion and illnesses the way humans read headlines."
The story is told in alternating chapters by the characters. Luke, Georgie, Cara, Edward, and Georgie's new husband Joe, an attorney. All of the characters were developed, most were sympathetic, and each interesting and complex in their own way. Some of the characters have baggage and secrets, each has a story to tell. I enjoyed all of their stories however, in my opinion, it was with Luke's character that the author outdid herself with some powerful characterization -- simply fantastic.
As I read the chapters from Luke's POV, I was moved by all that I read about the world of wolves, and interesting dynamics between pack behaviors, and human behavior. Throughout the story Luke compares how wolves versus humans might have reacted in a particular situation. It is obvious that Picoult did her homework while researching the behaviors of wolves with experts in the field. Luke's childhood and young adulthood, his life as a husband and father, is ever-so-interesting, as is the in-depth account about his life spent among the wolves. A man who many people thought of as a genius, while others thought of as insane. The writing in this area is riveting! I loved how the author was able to demonstrate Luke's less than perfect parenting skills, but yet his unquestionable love for his children.
---"People assumed that the reason I walked away from the pack that day was because of the harsh conditions had finally become overwhelming -- the weather, the cold, the near starvation, the constant threat of predators. But the real reason I came back is much simpler. -- If I hadn't left at that moment, I know I would have stayed forever".
As you can probably tell, I really loved Lone Wolf. It was at times both thought-provoking and emotional. Especially heartfelt was watching what Georgie had to endure, as she witnessed her two children battling over their father's fate. This page-turner should make for some lively book club discussions. Highly Recommended.

Unflattering as the story of Little Red Riding Hood is to wolves, no rational adult believes that a wolf could eat Granny and then climb into bed wearing her nightgown. But readers believe Jodi Picoult because many, like me, have been impressed with the author's meticulous and exhaustive research into the subject matter on which the plots of her other novels are based. This attention to detail makes the stories credible and the outcomes believable.
Thus, I am incredulous at the degree of inaccuracy and the amount of absurd misinformation about wolves in Lone Wolf. The editorial review above references "Picoult's impressive research into wolf biology, hierarchy and pack mentality." Wrong. Picoult didn't do her homework properly this time, and her reputation for getting the facts in order just plummeted into the abyss.
As a wolf educator and writer of wolf curricula for teachers and non-formal educators, I am frankly infuriated by the sheer nonsense in the "Luke" segments of the book. In an effort to debunk the myths about the wolf as "the beast of waste and desolation," Picoult has created an equally unscientific, inaccurate and ultimately harmful portrayal of wolves and of wolf packs. Why did she not go to the books and articles by the renowned researchers and scientists like L. David Mech, founder of the International Wolf Center - a man who has spent over 50 years studying wolves and sharing his knowledge with the general public? What about the other science-based wolf education organizations that have web sites crammed with solid information about the biology and ecology of wolves? They include the Wolf Conservation Center, the California Wolf Center and the Red Wolf Coalition.
As for a human living with a wild wolf pack, that is the stuff of ancient legend and of the baseless boasting by a few self-promoting individuals who think that a human can "become" a wild creature and who dishonor animals by ascribing to them human characteristics. Anyone who believes a person claiming to have been accepted as a member of wild wolf pack is naive in the extreme.
Picoult should have carefully checked the credentials of her information source. Because she didn't do that, wolf educators' jobs have been made that much harder, and the "real" wolf has once again been subjected to ludicrous - and tragic - misrepresentation. Shame on Jodi Picoult.