Stephen King says so:
I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Dog-lovers in particular will be riveted by this story, because the canine world has never been explored with such imagination or emotional resonance. Yet in the end, this isn't a novel about dogs or heartland America — although it is a deeply American work of literature. It's a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate. Yet in the person of Edgar Sawtelle, a mute boy who takes three of his dogs on a brave and dangerous odyssey, Wroblewski does articulate them, and splendidly. I closed the book with that regret readers feel only after experiencing the best stories: It's over, you think, and I won't read another one this good for a long, long time.
In truth, there has never been a book quite like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I thought of Hamletwhen I was reading it (of course... and in this version, Ophelia turns out to be a dog named Almondine), and Watership Down, and The Night of the Hunter, and The Life of Pi — but halfway through, I put all comparisons aside and let it just be itself.
I'm pretty sure this book is going to be a bestseller, but unlike some, it deserves to be. It's also going to be the subject of a great many reading groups, and when the members take up Edgar, I think they will be apt to stick to the book and forget the neighborhood gossip.
Wonderful, mysterious, long and satisfying: readers who pick up this novel are going to enter a richer world. I envy them the trip. I don't reread many books, because life is too short. I will be rereading this one."
I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't want to disappoint Stephen King. Come to the Lighthouse Writer's Buzz, Saturday, 11/22, 4:30 PM, @ The Lab at Belmar (ten quick minutes from downtown Denver, in the newish Belmar area in Lakewood). The event is free and open to the public. There will be wine/beer/food (wine/beer is $3/each, food is complimentary), books for sale, and time to get your personal inscriptions from Wroblewski to everyone on your holiday gift list.
