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Sister Wolf: A Novel
Winner of the National Book Award for Best First Novel: Ann Arensberg’s celebrated work tells a hallucinatory tale of sexual desire, jealousy, and savage love
On a June night in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, Marit Deym prowls her land, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the van from the Dangerfield Zoo. When it finally comes—hours late—five wolves leap out onto the sprawling wildlife refuge Marit has created. And then one night, the wolves bring a stranger to her door.
A poetry instructor at a school for the blind, Gabriel Frankman lives in self-imposed exile after the death of the girl he loved. He visits her grave every weekend. He carries sunflower seeds in his backpack and his friends are the birds. Meeting the girl who keeps wolves will transform Gabriel’s life in ways he could never imagine.
Haunting and lyrical, shot through with grace notes of passion and sorrow, Sister Wolf is about the power of human beings—like that of their animal brethren—to survive and endure.
On a June night in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, Marit Deym prowls her land, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the van from the Dangerfield Zoo. When it finally comes—hours late—five wolves leap out onto the sprawling wildlife refuge Marit has created. And then one night, the wolves bring a stranger to her door.
A poetry instructor at a school for the blind, Gabriel Frankman lives in self-imposed exile after the death of the girl he loved. He visits her grave every weekend. He carries sunflower seeds in his backpack and his friends are the birds. Meeting the girl who keeps wolves will transform Gabriel’s life in ways he could never imagine.
Haunting and lyrical, shot through with grace notes of passion and sorrow, Sister Wolf is about the power of human beings—like that of their animal brethren—to survive and endure.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 12, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 22, 2019
the aristocratic Marit Deym inherits acres of forestland; she creates a wildlife preserve and smuggles in a small pack of wolves to live there. her one friend: urbane lesbian Lola, who is hungry like the wolf for innocent debutantes. her true love: lone wolf Gabriel, teacher of the blind children whose school borders her preserve. Gabriel sparks an all-encompassing passion in Marit, and then a deranged possessiveness, a wolfish hunger to make every part of him hers, and to destroy all rivals, living and dead.
I actually did not expect this strange and beautifully written story - winner of the National Book Award for Best First Novel in 1981 - to be a portrait of a descent into madness. I was reminded of the excellent Endless Love's equally stark portrait of extremes of emotion. Marit is a rich eccentric but I somehow understood her, perhaps didn't completely relate to her but she was in many ways sympathetic: awkward, independent, and often covering her shyness with a blunt dismissiveness. so, understanding Marit, it was shocking to realize that just a few pages earlier I was watching her address a town hall meeting in her stumbling way and then now here she was at a grave site, on her knees in violent hysterics, scrabbling in the ground and covering her face with graveyard dirt. Marit certainly doesn't do things by half-measures, including falling in love, including going crazy. and including protecting the animals in her keeping. poor Marit!
it looks like this very talented author only wrote three books. I wonder why that it is. her prose impresses, the narrative she constructs is hypnotic, and she has that uncommon ability to write lyrically but not in an obvious way. her dialogue is sharp and often realistic, except during one standout scene where the lovers confront one another in language that is weirdly, fascinatingly stilted, as if they were channeling all such lovers learning that love does not make things perfect. her skill with characterization is fantastic! Marit and Gabriel are incredibly insular, often unlikable people and Arensberg makes us know them fully, if not like them. but the best part of the book is stylish, wolfish Lola, a loyal and supportive best friend, a heartless heartbreaker, a cynical society girl, and the sole voice of reason in this increasingly dark and unbalanced story. it's hard not to read this book as if seeing the players and their drama through Lola's unsentimental eyes, and it's hard not to want to keep reading more about this delightful character.
I actually did not expect this strange and beautifully written story - winner of the National Book Award for Best First Novel in 1981 - to be a portrait of a descent into madness. I was reminded of the excellent Endless Love's equally stark portrait of extremes of emotion. Marit is a rich eccentric but I somehow understood her, perhaps didn't completely relate to her but she was in many ways sympathetic: awkward, independent, and often covering her shyness with a blunt dismissiveness. so, understanding Marit, it was shocking to realize that just a few pages earlier I was watching her address a town hall meeting in her stumbling way and then now here she was at a grave site, on her knees in violent hysterics, scrabbling in the ground and covering her face with graveyard dirt. Marit certainly doesn't do things by half-measures, including falling in love, including going crazy. and including protecting the animals in her keeping. poor Marit!
it looks like this very talented author only wrote three books. I wonder why that it is. her prose impresses, the narrative she constructs is hypnotic, and she has that uncommon ability to write lyrically but not in an obvious way. her dialogue is sharp and often realistic, except during one standout scene where the lovers confront one another in language that is weirdly, fascinatingly stilted, as if they were channeling all such lovers learning that love does not make things perfect. her skill with characterization is fantastic! Marit and Gabriel are incredibly insular, often unlikable people and Arensberg makes us know them fully, if not like them. but the best part of the book is stylish, wolfish Lola, a loyal and supportive best friend, a heartless heartbreaker, a cynical society girl, and the sole voice of reason in this increasingly dark and unbalanced story. it's hard not to read this book as if seeing the players and their drama through Lola's unsentimental eyes, and it's hard not to want to keep reading more about this delightful character.
October 21, 2014
Now and then you come across a writer with a talent that is so unique, and so idiosyncranatic that they can ignore most of the "rules" that apply to a good work of fiction and still turn out a work that is worth reading. Sister Wolf is that kind of book, and Ann Arensberg is that kind of author. It's a short novel, full of contradictions and shifts of mood and pace, but still manages to have a coherent narrative, and a consistent compelling voice.
It's the story of Merit Deym, an heiress of Hungarian aristocracy who lives on a thousand miles of Berkshire Hills wilderness. Bright and attractive, but uncomfortable around most people Merit feels most at ease with the wild animals, bears and wolves included, that she allows to live on her unofficial preserve. She has one real friend, Lola Brevard, a breezy socialite who juggles her open social calendar with a secret life as a lesbian with a taste for coltish tomboys. There is also one man in her life, Gabriel Frankman, hot-tempered as a youth who has since wrapped himself in a blanket of asceticism and become a teacher of blind children at an exclusive academy not far from the Deym estate. It would not be too far off of the mark to say that the rest of the story is just watching these three characters interact for a month or so, until a series of misunderstandings escalate into tragedy. It would also be a bit simplistic.
What Ms. Arensberg does that is so original that I alluded to in the first paragraph is that the majority of the narrative in this book could be called back-story. She shows and tells us these, and several other well-drawn minor characters, stories until the present day, and then with about twenty percent of the book left, the rest of the tale unfolds. Admittedly the stuff that does happen is amongst the most sensational in a novel filled with byzantine twists and strange, complex individuals. The reason that this works in this case is that Ms. Arensberg is a writer that knows how to make prose sing, so that while basically filling us in on the past lives of these people it is never less than fascinating.
The only thing that keeps me from labeling this a five-star book is that most of the characters in this book are particularly difficult to like or empathize with, and while that is not a prerequisite, it certainly does help the medicine go down a bit smoother. The only one I felt and degree of sympathy with, until near the end, was Lola, who was a ray of sunshine amidst a group of gloomy Guses caught up in the middle of a Gothic nightmare. Yet for the majority of this book I was held in thrall, and that says quite a bit for the talent of Ms. Arensberg, and quite a bit for this special novel.
Review by: Mark Palm
It's the story of Merit Deym, an heiress of Hungarian aristocracy who lives on a thousand miles of Berkshire Hills wilderness. Bright and attractive, but uncomfortable around most people Merit feels most at ease with the wild animals, bears and wolves included, that she allows to live on her unofficial preserve. She has one real friend, Lola Brevard, a breezy socialite who juggles her open social calendar with a secret life as a lesbian with a taste for coltish tomboys. There is also one man in her life, Gabriel Frankman, hot-tempered as a youth who has since wrapped himself in a blanket of asceticism and become a teacher of blind children at an exclusive academy not far from the Deym estate. It would not be too far off of the mark to say that the rest of the story is just watching these three characters interact for a month or so, until a series of misunderstandings escalate into tragedy. It would also be a bit simplistic.
What Ms. Arensberg does that is so original that I alluded to in the first paragraph is that the majority of the narrative in this book could be called back-story. She shows and tells us these, and several other well-drawn minor characters, stories until the present day, and then with about twenty percent of the book left, the rest of the tale unfolds. Admittedly the stuff that does happen is amongst the most sensational in a novel filled with byzantine twists and strange, complex individuals. The reason that this works in this case is that Ms. Arensberg is a writer that knows how to make prose sing, so that while basically filling us in on the past lives of these people it is never less than fascinating.
The only thing that keeps me from labeling this a five-star book is that most of the characters in this book are particularly difficult to like or empathize with, and while that is not a prerequisite, it certainly does help the medicine go down a bit smoother. The only one I felt and degree of sympathy with, until near the end, was Lola, who was a ray of sunshine amidst a group of gloomy Guses caught up in the middle of a Gothic nightmare. Yet for the majority of this book I was held in thrall, and that says quite a bit for the talent of Ms. Arensberg, and quite a bit for this special novel.
Review by: Mark Palm
July 14, 2014
This 1980 novella, recently reissued as an ebook by Open Road Media, is a mighty strange mixture of elements, but just atmospheric and well-written enough to keep me reading. Marit Deym has inherited from her aristocratic Hungarian parents a tumble-down mansion in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. Now the largest landowner in the county, Marit chooses to turn her property into a private nature reserve; as the novel opens, she is having four wolves released in secret, to join the reintroduced lynx, bears and other wildlife once native to the region.
The other two main characters are Lola, a wise-cracking lesbian debutante with whom Marit maintains a “peppery friendship,” and Gabriel, a teacher at Meyerling, the school for the blind that abuts Marit’s land. My favorite parts explored Gabriel’s past – studying at a seminary, missionary work in Cuba, and losing his fiancée in a horrible accident – and that of the bishop who founded Meyerling. I also enjoyed the banter between Marit and Lola. Arensberg has some very witty lines, including this one about not having a good poker face: “Marit knew she was not good at self-inhibition; no one had ever said to her, after a crisis, ‘You had a fever of one hundred and four? A dying mother? A severed limb? I would never have known it.’”
I had trouble dating the book’s action or determining the age of the characters, but my best guesses were 1960s-70s and late 20s, respectively. I was rather startled at the turns the book takes: it’s not really about the nature reserve, as I might have expected; instead, it’s an intense story of sexual jealousy and the witch hunt that follows an accidental death. The ending surprised me, the last paragraph is fantastic, and Arensberg even manages to insert some successful echoes of classic horror and Gothic fiction. It’s overall a very peculiar book, one that has probably, understandably, had limited appeal, but it did win the National Book Award for Best First Novel in 1981. Arensberg is currently finishing her fourth novel, so perhaps this one (and Incubus, currently available for request on NetGalley) will direct some fresh attention her way. I’d certainly be willing to take a look at more of her work.
More great reads courtesy of Open Road Media:
• Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
• Byrd by Kim Church
• Something Blue by Ann Hood
The other two main characters are Lola, a wise-cracking lesbian debutante with whom Marit maintains a “peppery friendship,” and Gabriel, a teacher at Meyerling, the school for the blind that abuts Marit’s land. My favorite parts explored Gabriel’s past – studying at a seminary, missionary work in Cuba, and losing his fiancée in a horrible accident – and that of the bishop who founded Meyerling. I also enjoyed the banter between Marit and Lola. Arensberg has some very witty lines, including this one about not having a good poker face: “Marit knew she was not good at self-inhibition; no one had ever said to her, after a crisis, ‘You had a fever of one hundred and four? A dying mother? A severed limb? I would never have known it.’”
I had trouble dating the book’s action or determining the age of the characters, but my best guesses were 1960s-70s and late 20s, respectively. I was rather startled at the turns the book takes: it’s not really about the nature reserve, as I might have expected; instead, it’s an intense story of sexual jealousy and the witch hunt that follows an accidental death. The ending surprised me, the last paragraph is fantastic, and Arensberg even manages to insert some successful echoes of classic horror and Gothic fiction. It’s overall a very peculiar book, one that has probably, understandably, had limited appeal, but it did win the National Book Award for Best First Novel in 1981. Arensberg is currently finishing her fourth novel, so perhaps this one (and Incubus, currently available for request on NetGalley) will direct some fresh attention her way. I’d certainly be willing to take a look at more of her work.
More great reads courtesy of Open Road Media:
• Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
• Byrd by Kim Church
• Something Blue by Ann Hood
August 13, 2016
The 1981 National Book Award winner and well worth reading for its intricate character development and general intelligence (or cerebrality is that a word?). I found it over-stuffed, though, as if Arensberg poured half a life's ideas into this small container when she should have been writing dozens of novels. (She went on to publish two more: Group Sex and the amazing Incubus). From the NBA page:
Ann Arensberg’s writing career began when she was thirty-nine. Her first published story, “Art History,” appeared in Antaeus and won an O. Henry Prize. The story caught the eye of Alice Quinn, then an editor at Knopf. Quinn told Arensberg that if she ever wrote a novel, she should send it to Knopf. Five years later Arensberg finished Sister Wolf.And Lauren Cerand on rediscovering this novel:http://www.nbafictionblog.org/nba-win...
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November 14, 2023Sometimes you find yourself halfway through a masterful depiction of sexual jealousy and realize, hey, I don't really need any more masterfully depicted sexual jealousy.
April 27, 2021
Damn, ok. I don't know where I first heard the phrase 'sister wolf' but it did inspire my twitter handle (@spinsterwolf) so I was bound to read this book eventually. I pictured Marit as my coolest English teacher from high school, youngish and thin and kind of cranky but always relieved when someone said something intelligent. I feel a kinship with that teacher, and with Marit, and with wolves. I read this at a really good time in my life.
December 11, 2019
Kept reading just to finish...and wondering, how on God's green earth, this book was awarded an American Book award in 1981? Good golly, what was the competition?
July 22, 2020
This book has been taking up shelf space for at least twenty years, until I entirely forgot the plot. On rereading it I wondered why I kept it. It should have trigger warnings for references to paedophilia, stereotypic portrayals of a lesbian as predator, and the disabled would probably be happy to cast it on the fire. I will be happy to fling it into the goned box, my only regret being that some of the descriptions and language is beautifully rendered.
Marit, wealthy Marit, is turning her parents estate into a wildlife refuge without proper fencing or community support. She gains her animals illicitly, releasing wolves, lynx, black bears, etc at night. This is more than somewhat irresponsible as there is a school for the very wealthy blind on one side of her property. She beleives the overzealous instructors will keep their charges from straying into the refuge, and by and large she is right. But one night the wolves find Gabriel blundering in the woods and bring him to their mistress. She and Gabriel have a "relationship" that seems to become problematic when speach and wallet contents intervene.
Marit's jealous of one of the nubile blonde students, Aimee, becomes obsessive. Her predatory lesbian friend, Lola, doesn't seem to take Marit's mental disintegration very seriously. I like the fact that Marit can have a lesbian friend, but Lola is as distasteful as Marit. I like the fact that Lola is very feminine and Marit is a tomboy, but that's the extent of my affection for either.
I will leave Aimee's fate to the reader, and I tend to agree with the author when she portrays the over civilization and pacification of the blind students. Gabriel's personification of spurious conscience, a boy branded by violence, who grows to be a caretaking man, is compelling. His resolution has the metallic tang of irony.
People have compared this book to Wuthering Heights, Lolita, Mayerling and The World of Henry Orient. I am familiar with only the first two, which I remember only vaguely. I would add The Haunting of Hill House.
Marit, wealthy Marit, is turning her parents estate into a wildlife refuge without proper fencing or community support. She gains her animals illicitly, releasing wolves, lynx, black bears, etc at night. This is more than somewhat irresponsible as there is a school for the very wealthy blind on one side of her property. She beleives the overzealous instructors will keep their charges from straying into the refuge, and by and large she is right. But one night the wolves find Gabriel blundering in the woods and bring him to their mistress. She and Gabriel have a "relationship" that seems to become problematic when speach and wallet contents intervene.
Marit's jealous of one of the nubile blonde students, Aimee, becomes obsessive. Her predatory lesbian friend, Lola, doesn't seem to take Marit's mental disintegration very seriously. I like the fact that Marit can have a lesbian friend, but Lola is as distasteful as Marit. I like the fact that Lola is very feminine and Marit is a tomboy, but that's the extent of my affection for either.
I will leave Aimee's fate to the reader, and I tend to agree with the author when she portrays the over civilization and pacification of the blind students. Gabriel's personification of spurious conscience, a boy branded by violence, who grows to be a caretaking man, is compelling. His resolution has the metallic tang of irony.
People have compared this book to Wuthering Heights, Lolita, Mayerling and The World of Henry Orient. I am familiar with only the first two, which I remember only vaguely. I would add The Haunting of Hill House.
April 11, 2021
Hmmm...not sure what to say. This book just took way to long to engage, and even when you finally felt your curiosity piqued enough to read on without for ev the characters still continued to lack real definition. The storyline seemed to meander with no great purpose and the backstory seemed to have no connection whatsoever to the dim focal point.
Disappointed, is an understatement. The author never really got this story off of its feet and after wandering listlessly through what was an attempt at theme or plot the story ends dramatically with no real reason or conclusion. I do not believe all stories need to be tied up with a bow, but I have always believed they need some sort of box.
Disappointed, is an understatement. The author never really got this story off of its feet and after wandering listlessly through what was an attempt at theme or plot the story ends dramatically with no real reason or conclusion. I do not believe all stories need to be tied up with a bow, but I have always believed they need some sort of box.
July 28, 2018
The creepy cover, Berkshires setting, and the promise of a story about a woman running an animal sanctuary drew me in, but the book itself did not. The characters were cold and left me cold. There was a distance in the writing, and really very little focus on the animals. The writing was good, but I gave up on the book about halfway through, then skipped ahead to the ending to see if it would reward plodding on. It didn't. :-(
October 20, 2019
I enjoyed this book for its unusual theme and the non linear style in which it is written. From chapter to chapter, you never knew how it would begin and where it may lead. It was very fresh and current in both style and exposition.
December 30, 2017
Great characters. Great prose. I loved it. Some shocking, kinda creepy, plot elements. So I hope I'm not creepy by liking it so much.
March 9, 2022
This story was 99% character development and 1% plot. Previously I’ve said I love books that focus on character development, but this novel is making me rethink that statement.
May 15, 2023
RED FLAG
If you set up a school for the blind next to a wildlife sanctuary, it might be a good idea to have 911 on speed dial.
If you set up a school for the blind next to a wildlife sanctuary, it might be a good idea to have 911 on speed dial.
November 15, 2015
Every once in a while you have to beat yourself up over not starting a book sooner. That time has come for me because I managed to not read Sister Wolf for a whole year.For some reason or another it constantly slipped through the net, escaping my attention, much like a wolf itself. But I captured it and now I'm slightly fascinated by it.
Sister Wolf takes you on a fascinating journey into that part of humanity which is a bit savage and which we keep so very tightly reined in most of the time nowadays. Society and civility have made great actors out of all of us, even though we often don't even realize we're actually performing. In Sister Wolf Arensberg dollows Marit Deym as she works on protecting the wolves and other animals in her wildlife refugee. Marit herself feels tightly reigned in, on the brink of revealing herself to be less civil and upstanding than the townfolk seem to assume. The metaphor of the wolf is a great one and has often been used, not always to such great effect as in Sister Wolf. The dual nature of the creature, both predator and victim to humanity, reflects the way we cage ourselves in quite well. It also allows for some beautiful descriptions which Arensberg seems to revel in.
Sister Wolf is a great book, enjoyable and captivating at the same time. It's not an easy read but it's a worthwhile one, digging into the animalism of humans. This novel has stunning descriptions and even one or two twists, which are great. I'd recommend this to fans of suspense and thriller reads.
For Full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.co.uk...
Sister Wolf takes you on a fascinating journey into that part of humanity which is a bit savage and which we keep so very tightly reined in most of the time nowadays. Society and civility have made great actors out of all of us, even though we often don't even realize we're actually performing. In Sister Wolf Arensberg dollows Marit Deym as she works on protecting the wolves and other animals in her wildlife refugee. Marit herself feels tightly reigned in, on the brink of revealing herself to be less civil and upstanding than the townfolk seem to assume. The metaphor of the wolf is a great one and has often been used, not always to such great effect as in Sister Wolf. The dual nature of the creature, both predator and victim to humanity, reflects the way we cage ourselves in quite well. It also allows for some beautiful descriptions which Arensberg seems to revel in.
Sister Wolf is a great book, enjoyable and captivating at the same time. It's not an easy read but it's a worthwhile one, digging into the animalism of humans. This novel has stunning descriptions and even one or two twists, which are great. I'd recommend this to fans of suspense and thriller reads.
For Full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.co.uk...
March 14, 2014
My View:
A day after finishing this book I am still not quite sure what I felt about this book – it has a unique style and rhythm; dropping in and out of past and present. I enjoyed the recounting of a historical landscape that was totally alien to me – an aristocratic Hungarian family's perspective set in the early/mid to 1900’s. The descriptions of the everyday and the occasions were engaging and shed a light on how the essence of Marit was formed.
I enjoyed the sub text about the setting up of the private animal refuge and the relationship that Marit has in particular with the wolves – this I think could have been the main ingredient of a book in itself. However these elements were not really enough to engage me; I found all the characters needed fleshing out and I did not find any that were at all likable. I find myself asking – what was the point of this narrative other than to ask the question – who really was captive – the wolves or Marit? Whose behaviour more civilised – Marit’s or the animals in her refuge? The animals win hands down.
A day after finishing this book I am still not quite sure what I felt about this book – it has a unique style and rhythm; dropping in and out of past and present. I enjoyed the recounting of a historical landscape that was totally alien to me – an aristocratic Hungarian family's perspective set in the early/mid to 1900’s. The descriptions of the everyday and the occasions were engaging and shed a light on how the essence of Marit was formed.
I enjoyed the sub text about the setting up of the private animal refuge and the relationship that Marit has in particular with the wolves – this I think could have been the main ingredient of a book in itself. However these elements were not really enough to engage me; I found all the characters needed fleshing out and I did not find any that were at all likable. I find myself asking – what was the point of this narrative other than to ask the question – who really was captive – the wolves or Marit? Whose behaviour more civilised – Marit’s or the animals in her refuge? The animals win hands down.
February 14, 2014
This is a rich and complex short novel of contrasts: of innocence and guilt; of care and revenge; of what most think of as ‘wild’ and what most think of as ‘civilized’; of natives and outsiders and so much more.
Both Marit Deym, second generation Hungarian and inheritor of her family’s estate in the Berkshires and Gabriel Frankman, a teacher at a nearby school of the blind are outsiders and have intentionally set themselves apart from the mainstream of village life; both have assumed responsibilities for the care of the helpless – wild wolves and bears, along with other smaller wild animals and blind children. Both have been celibate for years - that is until one night Gabriel, lost in Marit’s wildlife preserve, is herded by her wolves to her home and her side.
A novel of contrasting relationships SISTER WOLF is a haunting novel that raises questions about our assumptions of others and our care for one another.
Both Marit Deym, second generation Hungarian and inheritor of her family’s estate in the Berkshires and Gabriel Frankman, a teacher at a nearby school of the blind are outsiders and have intentionally set themselves apart from the mainstream of village life; both have assumed responsibilities for the care of the helpless – wild wolves and bears, along with other smaller wild animals and blind children. Both have been celibate for years - that is until one night Gabriel, lost in Marit’s wildlife preserve, is herded by her wolves to her home and her side.
A novel of contrasting relationships SISTER WOLF is a haunting novel that raises questions about our assumptions of others and our care for one another.
April 7, 2014
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.
The Berkshires is one of my favorite places and the setting was one reason I picked up the novel. I enjoyed the beginning of the book. The character of Gabriel who seemed to define himself by being subsumed by other characters, identifying his own goodness by allowing the needs of others to overwhelm and define him as a good person, was well crafted. The outline of Marit brings to life a woman who was not defined by other people, but by her devotion to her animals. Combining these two characters never really worked in the novel.
I could not see that Marit or Gabriel had any basic attraction for one another. Perhaps that is why the relationship never worked.
The course of the novel made no sense to me. I would have liked to see further development of Marit as the main character and to have her life and struggles with the sanctuary become the focus.
The Berkshires is one of my favorite places and the setting was one reason I picked up the novel. I enjoyed the beginning of the book. The character of Gabriel who seemed to define himself by being subsumed by other characters, identifying his own goodness by allowing the needs of others to overwhelm and define him as a good person, was well crafted. The outline of Marit brings to life a woman who was not defined by other people, but by her devotion to her animals. Combining these two characters never really worked in the novel.
I could not see that Marit or Gabriel had any basic attraction for one another. Perhaps that is why the relationship never worked.
The course of the novel made no sense to me. I would have liked to see further development of Marit as the main character and to have her life and struggles with the sanctuary become the focus.
April 1, 2016
Whoo boy.... I'd much rather have read this than the Great Gatsby.
Has won at least one major literary award. Belongs on the "classics/great literary reads" list.
It does cover rather mature themes: sexuality both hetero and homo. The heavy pressure to appear proper in the eyes of society. How a person's passion can be derided and cause them to become an outcast no matter how noble it might be. Longing & Loneliness. And one of my favorites: How people with disabilities are often put on a pedestal and treated as fragile *things* and not as human with all the accompanying flaws of such.
I'm deaf not blind and eschew the notion that people with a severe disability can't be treated or thought of as capable of being a functioning & contributing member of society. We adapt. There's usually some kind of accommodation that might be needed but to be completely segregated as the blind kids are in this book is a travesty.
Has won at least one major literary award. Belongs on the "classics/great literary reads" list.
It does cover rather mature themes: sexuality both hetero and homo. The heavy pressure to appear proper in the eyes of society. How a person's passion can be derided and cause them to become an outcast no matter how noble it might be. Longing & Loneliness. And one of my favorites: How people with disabilities are often put on a pedestal and treated as fragile *things* and not as human with all the accompanying flaws of such.
I'm deaf not blind and eschew the notion that people with a severe disability can't be treated or thought of as capable of being a functioning & contributing member of society. We adapt. There's usually some kind of accommodation that might be needed but to be completely segregated as the blind kids are in this book is a travesty.
December 28, 2014
Marit Deym lives alone in the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts where she has converted the land left to her by her Hungarian parents into a sanctuary for the wild animals that are her passion. Living pretty much outside mainstream society, she’s a strange and rather difficult woman. One day she meets Gabriel Frankman, a teacher of the blind at a local school. He cares for his pupils in much the same way that Marit cares for her animals and this is perhaps the bond that connects them. Her meeting with Gabriel changes her life in unexpected ways.
There’s some good writing in this rather strange and sometime difficult to follow novel, but I couldn’t really relate to it at all. Neither Marit nor Gabriel engaged me, nor did Marit’s quest to care for her wild animals, not the least important of which are, of course, the wolves. All in all the book left me cold and I couldn’t quite see what the point of it was.
There’s some good writing in this rather strange and sometime difficult to follow novel, but I couldn’t really relate to it at all. Neither Marit nor Gabriel engaged me, nor did Marit’s quest to care for her wild animals, not the least important of which are, of course, the wolves. All in all the book left me cold and I couldn’t quite see what the point of it was.
October 15, 2012
I'm not sure why this book left me so cold. The plot sounds interesting...a cold, loner of a former aristocrat, who bonds better with animals than people, falls in love with a perpetually guilty teacher of blind children from the school next door to her estate. Of course, as it is a modern novel, it all ends tragically. I guess, to me, the characters were not very well developed. SPOILER FOLLOWS: It seems unlikely that the heroine, as indepedent, angry and hateful as she was, would care enough for this man she met on a casual fling, to destroy herself for him. One of my tests for modern novelists is: is there any character in the book I'd like to have coffee with? Sadly, no.
August 5, 2017
Once again, I return to the genre that is not a genre. Literary fiction is defined more by its writing style and what’s not, more than anything else. Ann Arensberg’s novella Sister Wolf is a hypnotic story about a woman trying to build an animal sanctuary on her family’s land, the man who falls in love with her, and a tempest of mistrust and misunderstanding...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.
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June 30, 2016I read this years ago and immediately decided that when I retired I'd turn it into an opera libretto. I'm retired now but . . . I'm giving the book to the thrift shop in hopes that someone else might do that. Or enjoy reading it while imagining it as a grand gothic opera.
October 17, 2022
Not my favorite, but at least the cover (on my copy) is cool.
October 28, 2007
This was one wack-ass book.
April 1, 2018
started out promising but never lived up to it.
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