Editor's Choice
Like "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise" and "Lady Bird", it touched the growth story of tens of millions of readers.
2017 Booker Prize shortlist works! After going public, he went all the way through the test, and the literary master Paul? Auster's new work is among the Booker Prize shortlists. The copyright was sold in 15 countries and sold millions of copies.
Goodreads, The New York Times, USA Today, 2017 "Once."
BBC, National Radio (NPR) 2017 "Zui noteworthy **".
Chicago Public Library's 2017 "Best Zui of the Year**".
2018 International PEN Literary Prize Zui Best Author Short List.
The BBC and The Times praised the author Fred Lund as "a rare genius writer whose language is sophisticated and beautiful, and which is unforgettable".
Introduction
Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in a lakeside cottage in the forests of northern Minnesota. In order to escape her lonely life, she gave herself a new name, "Madeleine". But the isolation of her former living environment made her still seem out of place at school.
But fate closes a door and will surely open a window for you. Linda's life seems to have taken a turn for the better — encouraged by a new history teacher, she took part in a "Journey to History" contest and gave a presentation on "The History of Wolves"; On the other hand, the hospitality of the newly moved young couple also opened the warm door of "family" to Linda.
Just when she feels that she can smoothly "blend in" into the crowd, she discovers that the world is far from as simple as it seems - the history teacher who has just become familiar with her is accused of misconduct, and the seemingly warm and kind new neighbor has unpredictable family relationships. The line between good and bad is blurred. After witnessing all this, Linda finally learns to see the world in her own way, but also leads to deeper loneliness as a result.
The story is poetic yet complex, blending elements of thriller suspense that is both heartbreaking and memorable. Perhaps, through thorns is growth, and wounds just represent being strong enough.
About the Author
Emily Fridlund:
Born in Minnesota, USA, he holds a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Washington and a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Southern California. In addition to History of Wolves, her collection of short stories, Catapult, has also been nominated for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Literature. He lives in New York.
Wonderful book review
A film full of artistry, the awakening of women's gender consciousness and the formation of self-identity, cunning and full of tension, has an extremely accurate description of emotions.
New York Times Book Review.
This film uses a fairytale-like innocent and mysterious language and structure to explore the gray area of morality between thought and action.
The Cox Review
The classical style of writing, Shakespeare's brushstrokes, and the anxiety of survival and power are presented through the life of a fourteen-year-old girl, which is extremely exciting.
The Guardian is elegant and gripping, where the survival of the natural world echoes the power of the real world. Behind the growth of a young girl is the complexity and struggle of the world.
Los Angeles Times
Fred Lund is a writer of both classical beauty and modernity, and reading her ** is like wandering through a fragmented world of elegance.
Financial Times
Fried Lund is a writer with unlimited potential, and her language is sophisticated and beautiful to be memorable.
The Saturday Review
BBCRADIO4
This is a first-class **: every suspense is like an icicle plunged into the melting snow, and it is loud.
The Times
Table of Contents
Science. Healthy.
This book is also too goodWonderful book excerptsThat's not to say that I never thought of Paul. Some mornings, when I was half-asleep, he would come to see me in my dreams, though I could barely remember what he said, what I did or didn't do to him. In my dreams, the child would pounce on my lap with a thud. I knew it was him—because he had no interest in me, not even the slightest hesitation. As we usually do, we sat in the nature pavilion in the evening, his body unconsciously leaning towards me—not out of love or respect, but because his mind was not yet fully opened and he didn't know how to control his body. He's four years old and he's putting together an owl puzzle, don't talk to him. I won't bother him either. Outside the window, the snowflakes of poplar fluff slowly fall, as quiet and light as air. Daylight transforms, and the pieces of the puzzle that make an owl fall into pieces. I poked Paul to get him up—it was time to go, the time was up. One moment he was yawning in my arms, and the next second he was whimpering, wanting to stay a little longer. I was speechless. Because you know, it's a wonderful feeling, and it's a strange feeling to have someone trying to monopolize you with some unreasonable feeling, but it's also sad.
Before Paul, I had witnessed the death of only one man. That was my 8th grade history teacher, Mr. Adler. He always wears a brown corduroy suit and white baseball shoes. Although his class was American history, he preferred to talk about the Tsar. Once, he showed us the last Tsar's **, and now that ** is my impression of him—a pirate black beard with a tassel on his shoulder—but Mr. Adler has no beard on his face and is slow to move. I remember when I was in English class, the fourth-graders he taught rushed in and said Mr. Adler had fainted. A large group of us hurried through the hallway to find him lying face down on the floor, eyes closed, black lips pressed against the carpet, panting hard. "Does he have epilepsy? Someone asked, "Did he have medicine with him?" We all answered no. The "multi-talented" Scouts were debating the right way to do CPR while whispering emotionally about his symptoms. I had to force myself to walk up to him, crouch down, and hold his shriveled hand. It was early November. His saliva soaked the carpet, and the interval between his breaths grew longer. I remember the smell of burning wafting from afar, someone burning garbage in plastic bags, presumably the gatekeeper trying to clean up the fallen leaves and pumpkin rinds before the first heavy snowfall.
Eventually, the paramedics arrived to carry Mr. Adler's body on a stretcher, and the Boy Scouts followed him like puppies, expecting the paramedics to give him a task. The paramedic expressed hope that someone would open the door, but the stretcher in his hand was too heavy to move. In the hallway, the girls were sobbing and next to each other; Several teachers pressed their hands to their chests, not knowing what to say or do next.
Intimidated? A paramedic asked. He stayed behind to hand out soda crackers to dizzy students. I shrugged. I must have been humming loudly. He gave me a cup of orange-flavored Gatorade and said, "Now drink it slowly and take small sips." It sounded as if I was the one who needed help, and that he was responsible for all the diseases of living things.
At that time, we were known as the "City of Glass Zander Bass", and Highway 10 was marked with special signage, and there was a mural on the wall of the roadside restaurant depicting three fish with mohican hairstyles waving their fins in greeting—their eyebrows fluttering, grinning, and even the teeth and gums visible. But in November, when the lakes freeze over, almost no one comes from out to see them. We didn't have much sightseeing there at the time, just a dirty motel. The business district is depressed: a restaurant, a hardware store, a bait and tackle shop, a bank, you name it. At that time, the most impressive place on the river was probably the old lumber mill, but it was mostly because it was half burned, and the charred black planks stood on the riverbank. Almost everything is official, with the hospital, DMV, Burger King and police station all located in Whitewood, more than twenty miles away.
On that day, Mr. Adler was picked up by paramedics in Whitewood as the ambulance made a characteristic honking sound as it pulled out of the school parking lot. We all stood by the window and watched, and nothing could distract us, not even the hockey players in the yellow hats that symbolized honor, or the cheerleaders who had static bangs. After that, it snowed heavily. As the ambulance was about to turn the corner, the bright light of the headlights pierced through the wind and snow and into our eyes across the street. "Isn't it supposed to be a whistle to drive? "Someone asked, and I weighed the last sip of Gatorade in my glass and thought to myself, how stupid can a man be?
Mr. Adler's successor was Mr. Grierson, who came to our school a month before Christmas, wearing a pearl-white t-shirt with pearl buttons, an exaggerated gold earring in one ear, and ** black as words. We later learned that he had previously been a teacher at a private girls' school by the sea in California. No one knows what made him come all the way to northern Minnesota in the middle of winter. However, after a week of teaching, he took the map of the Russian Empire that Mr. Adler had hung on the wall and replaced it with the oversized U.S. Constitution. He claimed to have double-majored in drama at university, so it's no wonder he was able to recite the Declaration of Independence verbatim with emotion with open arms in front of his students. He memorized the uplifting passages about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to the poignant and curled up sentences of rebellion against brutal colonization. I can see how much he wants to be loved by his students. In the section on "taking oaths to each other in our sacred honor," Mr. Grierson asked, "What does that mean?" ”
The hockey players were sleeping peacefully with their arms on their pillows, and even the talented students were just pressing the mechanical pencil indifferently, the refill sticking out of the air like a hospital syringe needle. They fought with their pens across the aisle, shouting "alert" softly, their tones full of disdain.
Mr. Grierson sat down at Mr. Adler's table, a little out of breath from the long recitation. Then it dawned on me that he was an old man—it was so strange, and for that moment, it was as if an invisible light was passing through his body. I could see the sweat on his face; Beneath his gray stubble, his pulse was beating violently. "Pay attention here. Guys. What do natural human rights mean? Be positive, you know the answer. ”
I saw him set his eyes on Lily Helmbon, who had shiny black hair. Despite the cold weather, she wore only a light crimson sweater. He seemed to think that her beauty would save him, that she was kind because she was lovelier than any of us. Lily has big brown eyes, no pencils, dyslexia, and a boyfriend. Under Grierson's gaze, her face slowly turned red.
She blinked. He nodded to her, secretly assuring her that he would agree to whatever she said. She licked her lips lightly like a fawn.
I raised my hand in a ghostly way. It's not that I'm sorry for her or him, it's just that the atmosphere was so tense at that moment that I couldn't bear it. "The meaning of this sentence is that there are some things that don't need to be proven," I gave my own answer, "and some things are just so true that nothing can change them." ”
Yes! He said, in a tone full of gratitude—I know—not specifically for me, but a blessing for shitty luck. They get what they want, but they don't know it's what I gave them. Lily can make people rejoice without saying a word. There were dimples on her face, and the nipples that loomed under her sweater seemed to be God's mark. And I'm flat-chested, comparable to a stair handrail, and people are always talking about it.
The winter of that year came with a bang, as if it had come from thousands of miles away, and was so tired that it suddenly fell to its knees and could not get up again. In mid-December, when a snowstorm hit the city, the snow crushed the roof of the stadium and the school was closed for a week, and the hockey players went ice fishing and the Boy Scouts played hockey on the frozen pond. Then, Christmas arrived, the main road was lit up and down, and the Luther Church and the Catholic Church were facing the Nativity statue – one meekly holding a painted sandbag, the other a baby Jesus carved out of ice. The New Year brings another blizzard. In January, before the school officially opened, Mr. Grierson replaced his white shirt and put on a featureless sweater, wearing hoop earrings and studs on his ears. Someone must have taught him how to use the answer sheet apparatus, because after a week of talking about the Lewis and Clark expedition, he organized his first quiz since joining the company. We crawled on the table and scribbled in small circles while he walked up and down the aisle, the ballpoint pen in his hand clicking.
The next day, Mr. Grierson asked me to stay after class. He sat down behind the desk, his hand touching his chapped lips, flakes sporadically falling from his fingers. "Your test scores are not ideal. He said to me.
He waited for my explanation, and I shrugged my shoulders slightly defensively. Before I could speak, he added, "Well, I'm sorry. He rubbed the stud on the earring—the stud was delicate, but it was complicated to wear. "I'm still figuring out what to teach. What did you learn before I came? ”
Russia. "Ha," a hint of contempt flashed across his face, and then he said with some delight, "the remnants of the Cold War still linger in the backwoods." ”
I decided to protect Mr. Adler: "We are not studying the USSR, but the tsar. ”
Oh, Marty, "No one ever called me that, it made me feel as if someone was tapping me on the shoulder from behind." My name is Madeleine, but my classmates call me Linda, or **, or monster. Hearing him call me, I couldn't help but clench my hands into fists in my sleeves. Mr. Grierson went on to say: "Before Stalin and the nuclear bomb, no one cared about the tsar. They are puppets on a distant stage, insignificant and not worth mentioning. Those who entered the university in 1961, such as Mr. Adler, have a lingering nostalgia for old Russian toys and the stories of princesses who were married by close relatives in the last century. Their ineffectiveness makes them interesting. Do you understand that? He smiled and closed his eyes. His front teeth are white, but the tiger teeth are yellow, "but you're only thirteen." ”
Fourteen years old. "I would say that if this is not a good start, then I'm sorry. But then, very quickly, we will be able to lay the groundwork. ”
A week later, he asked me to come to the classroom after school to look for him. This time he took off the stud earrings and placed them on his desk, rubbing his thumb and forefinger very gently against the earlobes.
Mattie. When he saw me coming, he straightened up.
He sat me down in a blue plastic chair next to his desk, placed a bunch of colorful booklets on my lap, and then crossed his fingers and said a little crampedly, "Can you do me a favor?" Please don't blame me, it's my job. ”
His so-called "help" was to allow me to attend the "History Journey Competition" as a school representative.
It's going to be a great experience," he said, but it wasn't convincing, "and all you have to do is make a poster and then give a presentation on something like the Vietnam War or the Canadian border crossings." Maybe you'll like the theme of desecration of the Ojibwa? What about the indigenous people who have returned to the mainland and settled here? Choose a topic that is distinctly nativistic, in a moral gray area, and has constitutional significance. ”
I want to do the theme of wolves," I said to him.
What the? The history of wolves? He looked confused, then shook his head with a smile and said, "yes." You're just a fourteen-year-old girl. The corners of his eyes wrinkled at the corners of his smile: "Children of your age like horses, wolves, and whatever." I love it, it's great, it's a weird theme. Can you tell me about that? ”
My parents didn't have a car, so as a result of missing the bus, I had to walk three miles along Route 10 and turn right onto Mirror Lake Road, where another mile would lead to an intersection that led to the lake to the north on the left and an untouched mountain on the right. I stopped at this junction, tucked the cuffs of my jeans into my socks, tightened the cuffs of my woolen gloves, and prepared to move on. In winter, under the orange sky, the bare trees look like veins, and the sky between the branches looks like sunburned**. I walked through the snow and sumac trees for twenty minutes before my dogs finally sensed my presence and began barking wildly, trying to break free from their chains.
By the time I got home, it was completely dark. As soon as I opened the door, I saw my mother standing hunched over in front of the pool, her arms reaching into the pool, the dirty water reaching her elbows. Her long, straight hair covers her face and neck, which makes her look mysterious. Her voice has a thick Midwestern accent, and at first glance it sounds like a typical Kansas. "Is there a prayer for unclogging a sewer pipe? She asked without looking back.
There was no fire in the fireplace. I put my gloves on the wooden fireplace, and tomorrow morning they will harden and I will definitely not be able to put them on. But I didn't care, and put my coat on the fireplace.
As for my mother's sewage-soaked coat, she slumped wet on the table. But she kept holding up her oil-stained hands, as if they were golden—the living creature was still writhing—it was the little bass she had just caught from the pond, and it was our supper. "We need a bottle of Tonno, damn. She looked up at the air, then slowly wiped her hands with her canvas bag. "Help. Human life is a farce, please God put an end to it with His infinite mercy. ”
She's just half-joking. I know her. There are many stories to prove this, such as in the early eighties, when my parents stole a van and fled to the River, and my father hoarded rifles and pots; After the collapse of the commune, my mother sold everything she had to do with hippies and took refuge in the ** religion. As far back as I can remember, she went to church three times a week—weekly.
3. Saturday and Sunday – She hoped that the confession would be remedied, and that the mistakes of the past would be slowly corrected as the years progressed.
Mom believes in God, but not willingly, like a grounded daughter.
Do you think you can take a dog back? ”
Back in town? "I'm still shivering. The thought made me furious for a moment, and I couldn't care about anything else. I can't even feel my fingers.
Or don't go back," she tossed her long hair behind her and wiped her nose with her wrist, "No, don't go back, it's probably below zero outside." I'm sorry. I'll go get another bucket. But she didn't move away from her chair. What was she waiting for. "I'm sorry I had to ask you a few questions. Don't get angry with these questions. Her two greasy hands clasped together, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." ”
With each cry of sorry, her voice was raised by one degree.
I paused and said, "It's okay. ”
Mr. Grierson's story goes like this. I've seen how he crouched at Lily's table and said, "You're doing a great job," as he said as he put his hand on her back like a paperweight; I have also seen him stretch out his fingers and gently pat her to give her encouragement; I've seen how curious and apprehensive he is about the cheerleaders (like Karens), who sometimes take off their woolen leg guards, revealing a goosebump-covered pale** — the leg guards cover them with rashes and itch until they break and then gently wipe them with toilet paper. He asked one of them in class – Karlens or Lily Holbang – and each question began like this: "Anyone?" Anybody home? He pretended to hit the **, lowered his voice, and roared at the ** that was "made" with his hands, "Hello, it's the Herbon family, is Lily there?" At this point, Lily's face flushed and she covered her smiling mouth with her cuffs.
But when I met Mr. Grierson after school, he would shake his head and say to me with an embarrassed look, "It's really stupid to pretend to be a, isn't it?" "He actually wants to be comforted by others, such as that everything is done very well, that he is a good teacher; He wants to be forgiven for even the slightest mistake. And he seemed to think that I was deliberately mediocre – because I was always watching with my hands on my chest and doing poorly on my exams. "Come on," he said timidly, sliding a thin blue jar off his table. It was a can of energy drink, and I took a few sips, and my heart was beating more and more intensely due to the high sugar and caffeine content; After a few gulps, I sat down in my chair and shivered, and I had to clench my teeth so that I wouldn't make a chattering sound.
Did Mr. Adler show you a movie? "He was curious to know that.
I don't know why I switched to his camp, I don't know why I've been so nice to him. "You've shown so many more movies than he has. I said.
He smiled with satisfaction: "How prepared is the game?" ”
I didn't answer the question, but picked up his energy drink and took another sip without permission. I wanted to tell him that I saw the way he looked at Lily Herbon, and I knew the meaning of his eyes better than Lily, and although I didn't like him at all—though I found his ** tricks creepy, and the color of his earrings wasn't brilliant at all—I knew him. The jar was empty, so I had to put my lips on the sip and pretend I hadn't finished my drink. Outside the window, hail whipped the snowdrifts, and the whole world was as hard as rock. It will be dark in less than an hour, and the dogs will pull the chains farthest away and wait for me in the closest place. Mr. Grierson began to put on his coat: "Come home together? "He never asked me how to get home — never.
Mr. Grierson treats the "History Journey Race" like a chore, and he thinks I think so. But in my heart I wanted to win. I decided to go see the real wolves. As night fell, I put on my boots, ski goggles, and my dad's down jacket that was mixed with his body odor — that is, tobacco, black coffee and musty — was mixed up. It's like borrowing his skin while he's sleeping, and having his grace, quietness, and body in a grand way. There was an old ice bucket next to the salted fish storage farthest from my house, and I sat on it, sipping boiling water from a thermos and waiting to see the real wolf. But wolves are rare in such a winter, in such a late night—I've only seen a few crows poking at a log in the distance. In the end, I had to accept the reality and think it would be nice to see a dead wolf. So, every Saturday I would go snowshoe to the Forest Service Nature Museum, where there was a greasy lady in the front room, wearing a pair of glasses and coral-colored nail polish; Her dark cheeks were sunken back, and she looked like she wasn't smiling. Her name was Peg, and she was a naturalist at the Nature Museum, and every time she saw me trying to touch the wolf's tail, she immediately put on a straight face and lectured me: "Aha! "She gave me some gummy bears and taught me taxidermy techniques, how to make eyelids out of clay and muscles out of styrofoam. "Ironing **, to ironing," she said.
On the morning of the History Tour, I saw the pine tree behind my house, and the needles on the branches were falling in small clusters spiraling down on the snow. After school, I took the casino bus to Whitewood. After getting out of the car, I carried a poster of a wolf and tried to break through the "siege" of the elderly in the nursing home, who frowned at me, but did not say anything. In the auditorium at Whitewood High School, I stood on the podium with a tree branch while repeating the wolf's roar, trying to create a somber atmosphere for my speech. Although my mouth was dry during my speech, I didn't glance down at my notes or boggle them back and forth like the male classmate in front of me. I was focused and calm. I pointed to the puppy on display on the stage and quoted a quote from the book: "But the word 'alpha' is still misleading, and it originally meant an animal in captivity. An 'alpha' animal only becomes captive at a certain time, for some special reason. These sentences always give me the feeling that I'm drinking some kind of cold and sweet forbidden drink. I remembered the swarthy lady in the nature museum who had always maintained a friendly posture like a puppy, and I recited the passage again. This time I slowed down, as if I were preaching a constitutional amendment.
Then, one of the judges held up his pencil: "But—I have to interrupt here." There are some things that you don't explain clearly. What do wolves have to do with human history? ”
At that time, I saw Mr. Grierson standing in the doorway. His coat hung around his arm and looked like he had just walked through the door. I saw him exchange glances with the judge who asked the question, and shrugged his shoulders gently with disdain, as if to say, what can you do with a child? What can you do with these adolescent girls? I took a deep breath, then stared at them and said, "Actually, wolves have nothing to do with people. Humans can always avoid wolves. ”
I won the Creative Award, which was a bouquet of carnations dyed green for St. Patrick's Day. Afterward, Mr. Grierson asked me if I was going to put pine branches and posters in his car and take them back to school, and I shook my head in frustration. First place was a seventh-grade girl in a suit with a watercolor painting of the sunken Edmund Fitzgerald. Mr. Grierson dragged the branch to the side exit, and I fastened my coat and followed him. He plunged the branch vertically into the rough snowdrift. "It's like Charlie Brown's Christmas" and he laughed and said, "I want to hang some gold leaf ornaments on the branches, it's so cute." ”
He bent down to remove the pine needles from his pants, and I reached out to help him clean up—and again—right in his thighs. He took a step back, shook his pants slightly, and laughed awkwardly. Whenever it comes to sex, men become clumsy, which is something I learned later. But at the moment I don't think what I'm doing has anything to do with sex — I'll make that clear — it's like grooming an animal, or coaxing a puppy at you, watching the hair on its neck stand up and fall, and then it's your pet.
I followed Lily Helborn's example, licked my lips like a fawn, and said innocently, "Mr. Grierson, can you take me home?" ”