Kiss of the Wolf

by Jim Shepard

Trying to raise her eleven-year-old son after her husband abandons them, Joanie struggles with her intrusive Italian family and an amorous former flame until she accidentally kills an acquaintance in a hit-and-run accident. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Suspense

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Jim Shepard is the author of seven novels, including most recently The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Achievement in Jewish Literature from the American Library Association and the PEN/New England Award for fiction, and five story collections, including his new collection, The World To Come. Five of his short stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize. He teaches at Williams College.

Reviews

[Jeff Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Shepard’s Kiss of the Wolf starts as an Italian-American family drama about a mother, Joanie, and her teenaged son, Todd, who are reeling from the loss of the husband/father who recently abandoned them to move somewhere west. As they struggle to rebuild their lives and redefine their relationship as Todd becomes the man of the house, their lives are turned upside down even further when they are involved in a fatal hit and run they fail to report. The weight of the secret they share and their Catholic guilt almost destroy them but things get even more ominous with the arrival of Bruno, a used car salesman and part time thug, that Joanie has known since high school. Shepard is adept at creating an increasingly dark and foreboding atmosphere that finally erupts into an act of violence that is both shocking and expected, yet ultimately feels rushed. Despite this, Shepard is a talented writer and skilled observer of human relationships.

[Anna-Marie Thibodeaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Specifically 2.75 stars out of 3. This was another book I got from a used book store based solely on the cover and the title. I did not really connect with any of the characters, but I quite enjoyed learning about them and figuring out their life in how they handled a traumatizing situation. The ending felt a little rushed, but I was somewhat glad as I was ready to move on to the next book. A fun read, but I’m not sure I’ll ever pick it up again.

[Nancy Traver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joanie and her son, 11-year-old son Todd, are struggling to cope after Joanie's husband abandons his family and moves out West to an unknown city. They attend a party following Todd's confirmation and, on the way home, Joanie hits and kills a pedestrian walking along the side of the highway. Instead of calling the police to report the accident, Joanie drives away, then returns to the scene of the accident and sees that other people have stopped and are attending to the victim. In a state of shock and confusion, she drives home while Todd repeatedly asks her to call the police.

Joanie and Todd share their terrible secret while dealing with their comically tactless and intrusive Italian family. They have been raised in a deeply Catholic family and attended strict Catholic schools. Sacrilege, sin, the suffering of Christ, the cruelty of the nuns in their Catholic school, and the anger of the priests in the confessional surface repeatedly as they struggle to hide their role in the hit and run and deal with their guilt.

Further complicating things, Joanie gets involved with Bruno Minea, an old family friend who has loved her since high school. The weight of their lies becomes more than they can can bear; meanwhile, they learn from Bruno that the victim was part of a criminal gang whose members were waiting for their payoff when the road accident occurred.

This book is part family drama, part thriller. Recently reviewed in The NY Times book column, Read Like the Wind.

[Angelique · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book but struggled to really connect. The premise seemed great and the meddiling over the top family were great. Had the potential to be a good thriller but this was very disjointed. The climax at the end however was a real page turner! A book of two halves - when it gripped me it was electric but there were parts of the story that just rambled on with no real purpose.

[Katja Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was a book someone gave me, because reading the summary on the sleeve it’s not something I would have chosen myself. I only read it to get it off my bookshelf and when I read the first chapter or two I thought oh boy this is going to be a long read-it’s just not my style.

However it quickly grew on me, kept me in suspense, and I demolished it in a few days. Yes the subject is uncomfortable but the book is fast paced and ends up surprising you even at the end. I even found myself laughing at some points.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sizzling guilt builds to a moral peak,
then explodes into a rush you can't put down.

[Carolyn Durrant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite. I did finish it though. Wish there were more to the ending of the story

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not love more...was literally holding my breath reading the last four pages. Such a good read.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puts the thrill into “thriller”, a great page turner.

[Hal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read about this one in the Read Like the Wind column in the NY Times. Though I was curious to see how it ended, I never got engaged in the plot or with any of the characters.

[July Maldonado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Shepard’s Kiss Of The Wolf surprised me, I think it’s a unique and interesting book one of my favorite quotes from this book is the first sentence of this book, "We are responsible for the bad things that happen to us." Joanie, a single mother who killed a man in a hit and run accident, Joanie and her 11 year old son try to keep it secret. Joanie was abandoned by her husband. She lived with her son Todd and she spent most of the time with her parents and other members of her Italian family, in Connecticut. I haven’t finished the book but I like it. I think is mysterious, I never know what’s gonna happen next.

The family was celebrating Todd’s confirmation, this prove to be ironic because of the following evil events. The celebration is fraught with tense, overprotective anxiety for Todd and his mother Joanie. Both of them are recovering from Todd’s father recent abandonment. The two of them left the family party with relief. While driving home, the woman hits a walker and for some reason she didn’t call the authorities. Todd has nowhere to go with his pain. Joanie, however, allows herself to be comforted by a behavior that once repulsed her. I think the theme of this book is bad choices have consequences, the first sentence of the book states that "We are responsible for the bad things that happen to us." This book captures the readers by its unique way to illustrate the bad choices that people make. I like the author's style, I haven't read many novels but I like the way the writes, its coherent and it makes sence, for what I have read, he writes the events chronologically. He doesn't really give much details about settings, the way he describes the set is pretty simple but I really like it because I like to get to the main point. His voice sounds like a man in his 30's even though he's 59 years old. Considering the characters, I like most of them so far, except for Joanie just because of the way she thinks and the bad choices she makes, she's unhappy, just like her mother. Joanie thinks her mother is disappointed with life for the way she looks at things. Furthermore, Nina, Joanie's sister is sad as well, she always grabs for the check and gets ckicked in the butt for her trouble. Joanie says that she makes things worse for herself, it annoys her that she annoys people. Not to mention Todd, he is a good kid, he loves his mother but he doesn't want to tell her that he wants to go to lacrosse camp. He wanted his dad to say goodbye in a proper way since he just left a nothe on the phone. He wasn't mad at his father at all. To illustrate the setting the author didn't give much detail. I imagine a small town in Conneticut with a bunch of green trees, very colorful but at night, when the accident happened, I imagine a place where there's rocks everywhere, and the trees make the setting even darker. The story's plot is captivating and is well organized, as the story line moves forward, it's given different perspectives occasionally, written by each of the four main characters. I can't really compare this book to anything I have read before because I don't really read novels, but I'm working on it and I'm looking forward to read more fiction novels. This book does not connect to my personal life at all, sure everyone takes bad choices but not like the ones some of these characters make.

As a final point, I do recommend this book, its interesting, its a well written book, I relly like how it's structured. It's a 308 pages book but I think it's worth it. I haven't finished it yet but I'm curious about how it's going to end.

[Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a moment to get into Kiss of the Wolf although I already had read enough of Shepard's shorter stories to know I liked his writing style. I think the problem was my inability to connect with his characters early on. Indeed, even by the end of KotW, I still felt that these people were living in an alien world with alien values and perspectives.

I related to the son best of all, and even then it was sparse.

That said, I understood and felt myself savoring the experience of being a part of their world.

Shepard has an innate mastery of sharing his character's inner lives in a way that makes them seem real. At least that's the effect I have noted in his short fiction. With KotW I felt the form messed with his talents (he has a strong use of 1st person POV, but his 3rd person felt somewhat dry and disconnected to me).

It was still a fun enough book to read. After Part II, the flow of the emotional struggles our "heroine" Joanie experiences drew me in. I cannot see myself as getting into the situation she was in at that point, but I could certainly see myself trying to deal with them. Shepard brings us that close to his characters...

[Deon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was strange. I never really felt a connection with the characters. Then there is the shocking end. It was almost as if the author didn't know how to end it and so decided to throw a little violence in there, go out with a bang.

[Kara Weiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection with (mostly) smart and interesting introductions

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

1st edition

[Ginger Hallett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A page-turner, for sure. The abrupt, disturbing ending was a surprise, left me upset. Nina was right about Bruno, after all. Poor Audrey.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt no connection with any of the characters at all.