12-09-2025, 02:45 PM
Begun as a response to a front page photograph illustrating a tragedy that the media quickly sensationalized in the early 2000’s, Wolf tells the composite truth of two brothers, a family friend, a father, and a murder. Skeptical of news cycles and the way trials become page-turners, this book forgoes the standards of true crime: quick conclusions and moralistic underpinnings. Instead, motivated by an attempt to extend empathy, its reconstruction unfolds in tones of witness and meditation. What results is a story about the extremities to which deeply unchecked abuse and ongoing trauma can push a family.
Review:
"Wolf utterly blew me away. It’s a novel told in poetic, yet conversational vignettes, that focuses on gender, masculinity, boyhood, and home. What is a home and how do we create safe homes for ourselves? And more so, how do we become our true selves, and not the selves society wants us to be―and falsely constructs? These are the questions the novel asks, as it tells the story of a family (specifically of a father and two brothers) and a murder―and how we live in a world of violence."― Joanna C. Valente, Luna Luna Magazine