Novel travels back for the truth about Annie Oakley
You can’t go forward without going back. That is the main idea behind “Annie and the Wolves,” the new novel by Andromeda Romano-Lax. The book follows Ruth McClintock, a historical writer determined to find out the truth of legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Annie was haunted later in her years by ongoing court battles with William Randolph Hearst, a horrendous train accident and, most of all, by something traumatic that happened in her youth.
Annie’s letters are vague, only referring to the source of the trauma as the “wolves.” Those wolves were men, and one man, who most likely abused her. After the untimely death of her father, her mother could not care for her nine children. Annie was “lent out” to a family to help do work on their farm and care for their child. That is where the abuse occurred.
Perhaps Ruth is so intrigued by Annie
Oakley because she, too, has suffered some trauma. Two years ago, she had a car accident leaving her physically and emotionally damaged. Since then, her marriage disintegrated, as well as her plans to finish a book and her doctorate. Always at the back of her mind is her younger sister’s suicide. The research into Annie’s past frees her from her own present.
Unexpectedly, Ruth is sent a mysterious journal by a man urging her to try to find out the legitimacy of its contents. The journal, Ruth comes to find, isn’t Annie’s but a physician’s, named Josef Breuer. Breuer’s work getting patients to talk about their traumas laid the groundwork for Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic approach. Dr. Breuer worked with Annie to overcome her trauma and to make sense of her “shifting time.”
During their sessions, Annie revealed to the doctor that she believed she could travel back in time to various points in her life. As more time went on, she was starting to learn to control it more, but the effects of the travels cause her physical harm. Ruth believes Annie was telling the truth because she, too, starts to experience this time distortion. Annie wants to go back and kill the wolf, and Ruth wants to save her sister.
Aiding in the research of this discovery is Reese, a local high school student, who feels inexplicably connected to Ruth. The feeling is reciprocated though neither understands it. Ruth then begins to see visions of possible future events, ones that end in violence. The events involve Reese, the school, and her ex-love, Scott, a teacher at the school. Reese understands Ruth’s solitary life since her accident, having attempted suicide the year previously. As they progress through the mystery of finding out what happened to Annie through letters and the journal, the pair find healing in each other’s company. Ruth starts to come out of her shell, slowly putting her life back together. But as they uncover more about Annie’s travels, Ruth begins to worry more about her own visions of the future.
It all ties in with Caleb, a student who was abused by the school’s coach. Caleb is on his own discovery with a journal, one belonging to Ruth’s sister, Kennidy. He finds that Ruth’s younger sister was one of many abused by the coach and sets out on a plot to exact revenge for them and himself. Along with trying to find out whether Annie sought her revenge, Reese and Ruth find themselves trying to stop a future they can see some flashes of — though not enough to stop it.
The introduction of the time travel is so adeptly written that the idea of this kind of element doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. Andromeda Romano- Lax does a brilliant job of fitting it in. The book reads like literary or historical fiction, even though many different current topics are addressed within its pages, like school violence, suicide and sexual abuse.
Each chapter of “Annie and the Wolves” follows a different character, flowing back and forth through time that has occurred and time that might have been altered by Annie. Although the novel starts a bit slow, about a third of the way in, it sets off and keeps the reader’s attention. I don’t know if I was more intrigued by the past with Annie or the present with Ruth. Everything was so perfectly woven together, leaving me eager for more. I think the hardest thing would be knowing how to classify the book with all its different elements. I’ve never been interested in the story of Annie Oakley, but now I feel an odd kinship to the folk heroine from reading “Annie and the Wolves.”