The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

The performance has its intended effect on Claude, and Edgar believes he has found his father’s killer. When a buyer comes to the farm to inspect the dogs, Edgar has his trained dogs perform a series of practices in which one dog retrieves a prop syringe and lays it at Claude’s feet. Edgar is sure the syringe is connected to his father’s mysterious death, and he is determined to find out how. The ghost directs Edgar to a hypodermic syringe hidden in the floorboards of the barn. Then one rainy night when he goes to the kennel to check on why the dogs are baying, Edgar sees the ghost of his father. Over the first weeks of his uncle’s return, Claude and Edgar’s mother begin a romantic relationship. Papineau, he calls his uncle to come help.

Edgar sees that running the farm is too much, and, with the help of the kindly local veterinarian Dr. One night he forgets to feed the dogs in the kennel, and a vicious fight breaks out. When his mother is bedridden with pneumonia, however, Edgar finds the responsibilities crushing. The coroner suggests an aneurysm but cannot be certain.Įdgar and his mother vow to maintain the farm. Days later, Edgar discovers his father sprawled on the floor of the barn struggling to breathe. After a few weeks, Claude departs abruptly. Although Edgar is never sure why, he senses his father and his uncle do not get along. When Edgar is 12, his uncle Claude returns to the farm. The boy, born mute, establishes deep connections with several of the family’s prized dogs, and Gar gives his son the opportunities at a young age to train them. He marries Gertrude (Trudy), and the couple has one child, a son they name Edgar. With the onset of the Korean War, Claude, never enamored with the dog breeding business, departs the farm to serve in the navy. In the late 1940s, Brothers Gar (short for Edgar) and Claude Sawtelle grow up on their family’s northern Wisconsin farm where the family, drawing on cutting-edge genetic theories, breeds dogs.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski