Sister Wolf

SISTER WOLF

by Ann Arensberg

 

Award: National Book Winner 1981

 

Date Read: July 23, 2023

 

Marit is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, Vladimir and Luba, who were well-off and left her a great inheritance. Marit has never married and allows only a few people close, namely her best friend Lola. With nothing but time and money on her hands, Marit decides to turn the land adjacent to her mansion into a wildlife preserve.

 

Initially, she has permission to house non-threatening indigenous wildlife that used to live in that area but were hunted off or otherwise removed. What the town does not know is that Marit has arranged to have four wolves on her property, a move she knows will get her into trouble if it were found out.

 

Next door to her property is a school for the blind and one of their teachers, Gabriel, becomes romantically entangled with Marit. As their relationship progresses, a picture emerges of Marit as incredibly jealous and very much unhinged. She obsesses over Gabriel’s deceased ex-wife, unable to come to terms with how much he loved her.

 

This jealousy, combined with a situation where she saw him comforting a blind girl from his school on a tennis court and it spells a recipe for disaster. There’s a bizarre scene where Lola and Marit drive to the cemetery where Gabriel’s wife is buried and Marit goes nuts – trying to push over the tombstone, smearing dirt all over her face and neck, crying hysterically. The woman should be committed.

 

One night not long after, Marit discovers the girl from the blind school that she had previously seen wandering lost in her preserve. Instead of offering assistance, Marit follows her and stalks her almost like a wolf. When the girl falls into a pond and doesn’t surface, Marit hides in her jealousy (Gabriel would spend hours comforting her when she was finally returned to the school) and does nothing to save her. She allows her to drown.

 

And so it goes that Marit’s world comes crumbling down. The girl is dead. Gabriel’s heart has hardened. The wolves are discovered and dealt with. Marit throws herself in the path of the wolves to save them in what appears to be suicide. 

 

Creepy. Well-written. God save anyone who ever meets a woman like Marit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Gentleman In Moscow

Image
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2018, Goodreads Finalist 2016, Kirkus Finalist 2016   Date Read: February 24, 2017   From Kirkus Reviews:   “Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.   Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfo
Read more

An Island

Image
AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 10, 2022   A short but mighty novel, An Island explores the concept of home, family, identity, the impact of political upheaval and the immigrant experience, when one’s suffering is so intense they move from one shitty country to the next. Samuel has finally found a peaceful home on an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. He was hired as a lighthouse keeper and after a tumultuous life, most of which was spent in prison as a political prisoner, he has carved out a life for himself on this island, enjoying a tranquil existence that basks in the quiet tasks of daily living.   Only after exploring Samuel’s life does the reader understand why such an isolated, spare and lonely existence satisfy him, with no desire to escape but only to grow deeper roots. His life witnessed the end of the British occupation, the installation of a brutal dictator and yet another dictator after the first was poisoned. Sam
Read more

The Changeling

Image
THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2019, LA Times Finalist 2017, PEN/Jean Stein Finalist 2018   Date Read: July 21, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “A  tragedy thrusts a mourning father into peculiar, otherworldly corners of New York City. When Apollo and Emma have their baby, Brian, it feels like both reward and challenge for the new dad. Apollo, the son of a single mother, had been scraping by as a bookseller who hunts estate and garage sales for rare first editions, so even the unusual circumstance of Brian's birth (in a stalled subway train) seems like a blessing, as does the way Apollo stumbles across a first edition of  To Kill a Mockingbird  (inscribed by Harper Lee to Truman Capote, no less) shortly after. But after some young-parent squabbles and inexplicable images on their smartphones foreshadow trouble, the story turns nightmarish: Apollo finds himself tied up and beaten by Emma, then forced to listen to the sounds of Brian’s murder. LaValle has
Read more