Emily Fridlund grew up in Minnesota. She holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Her collection of stories, Catapult, was chosen by Ben Marcus for the Mary McCarthy Prize and will be published by Sarabande Books. She lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York. History of Wolves is her first novel.
So much is accomplished here, not least a kind of trust that this writer will make everything count, including the kind of data that is usually left for dead in a story -- Ben Marcus, author of Leaving the Sea and The Flame Alphabet So delicately calibrated and precisely beautiful that one might not immediately sense the sledgehammer of pain building inside this book. And I mean that in the best way. What powerful tension and depth -- Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake As exquisite a first novel as I've ever encountered. Poetic, complex and utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful -- TC Boyle, author of The Harder They Come First thing you see is the bracing intelligence of the book's young narrator - no big-eyed sentiments for Linda, raised amid blighted ideals in the ceaseless winters and vast swamps of northern Minnesota. So observant is Linda that you trust her instantly, but it's her own search for trust, for connection even at enormous cost, that will hold you to the final hour. Emily Fridlund's language is generous and precise, her story grief-tempered and forcefully moving. History of Wolves is the loneliest thing I've read in years, and it's gorgeous. These are haunted pages -- Leif Enger