Man in wolf’s clothing
This is a tale of a man with two families: one human, the other canine
Jodi Picoult’s ripped-from-the-headlines novels are compulsively readable. Lone Wolf, her newest, is no exception.
The lone wolf of the title is Luke Warren, a famous biologist who has spent his life studying wolves by insinuating himself into captive packs. So great is Luke’s commitment to — or obsession with — wolves that he even spends two years living with a pack of wild wolves in the “Canadian wilderness.” The wolves adopt him, feed him and protect him from other predators. Although the experience adds invaluable details to the world’s knowledge about wolves, it rips apart Luke’s marriage and damages his relationship with his two children.
Sounds like extremely creative fiction. But as with her previous novels, Picoult has done her research. Lone Wolf is built around the actual account of a British researcher/animal behaviourist named Shaun Ellis. Ellis is the author of The Man Who Lives With Wolves (HarperCollins), his description of the two years he says he spent integrating himself into a wolf pack in the Rocky Mountains.
In the forward to Lone Wolf, Picoult writes that she was already planning a story around wolves when she came across Ellis. She thanks him for allowing her to borrow “bits and pieces from his incredible life.” In fact, she seems to have based Luke almost entirely on Ellis, down to his physical description and the setting where the character lives: a nature/amusement park, complete with animatronic dinosaurs.
The tension in Picoult’s novel, however, comes not from the suspense of seeing if the wolves will accept or reject Luke, with potentially deadly consequences. (That adventure is recounted in a series of flashbacks told from Luke’s perspective). Instead, the tension is built by the plot device Picoult uses to return to themes she has explored in previous books, including Mercy and My Sister’s Keeper: the life or death decisions one family member must make on behalf of another.
Lone Wolf begins with an accident that leaves Luke with a traumatic injury. He is being kept alive in a vegetative state by a ventilator. Luke’s estranged son Edward returns from a self-imposed exile in Thailand to decide whether or not to pull the plug, despite his sister Cara’s fierce desire to keep her father alive. The conflict allows Picoult to explore the family dynamics, including Warren’s relationship with his ex-wife Georgie, Edward and Cara’s mother. The book alternates between chapters told from the characters’ differing perspectives.
Picoult is a good writer; her characters are strong and their motivations believ- able, for the most part. (The most unbelievable part of the novel is Luke’s ability to survive winter in the Rockies, unscathed by hypothermia or frostbite, dressed in nothing but a one-piece quilted jumpsuit. It’s a claim Ellis also makes.) Even Luke’s fascination with his wolf family, at the expense of his human family, captures the reader’s sympathy.
Picoult depicts Luke as a good father, from Cara’s perspective, when he is around. He displays both wolf-like protectiveness and tenderness towards his daughter. I was left wanting more details, however, about how Luke and Georgie’s marriage deteriorated, in addition to the obvious strain Luke placed upon it by his absence. It was unclear what, from Luke’s perspective, made him betray his wife in the denouement that drove Edward from home.
Ultimately, Picoult does an excellent job of portraying the complexity of the issues and the emotions of family members forced to decide whether to terminate life support.
Less satisfactory was her ending (spoiler alert here), a romanticized encounter between the young man who receives Luke’s donated organs and a huge wolf. A tougher editor should have urged her to end the book without the epilogue.