Ordinary Wolves - Hardcover

Kantner, Seth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1571310444 ISBN 13: 9781571310446

Publisher: Milkweed Editions, 2004

Synopsis

<div>A stirring and vivid novel about a white boy raised among natives on the harsh Alaskan tundra, <i>Ordinary Wolves</i> depicts a life different from what most people have ever known. In its pages, Cutuk, a boy equally uncomfortable in the ways of whites and Inupiaq, tells of his youth and young adulthood: of his father, who brought his family to Alaska from Chicago before Cutuk's birth; of his adopted Inupiaq family; and of the vast Arctic expanse beneath the frozen sky. It is here that Cutuk grows up - hunting, fishing, and living off the land, far away from the grinding, yet beckoning, machine of consumer culture.<br><br>Dispelling all mythical visions of Alaska, this evocative novel leads readers down its true trails, to feel the icy pinch of cold, to hunker as blizzards moan overhead. And in the twilit spaces from which animals appear are the wolves - and Cutuk's father - living their lives out on the tundra, unobtrusive, unapologetic, uninvolved in the world beyond.</div>

About this title

Review

"Once in a great while a novel comes along that can shiver right down your bones and show you the world was always larger than you knew. This is just such an astonishing book: exotic as a dream, acrid and beautiful and honest as life, it sweeps back the material curtain of human contrivance to reveal what lies panting behind it. A piece of your heat and some longing, I promise, will stay in that other place forever."

About the Author

Seth Kantner trapper, fisherman, photographer, igloo-builder, and acclaimed author of Ordinary Wolves was born in a sod igloo on the Alaskan tundra and raised on the land, wearing mukluks before they were fashionable, eating boiled caribou pelvis, and trading and living with the Iñupiaq, the people native to the region. Kantner attended the University of Alaska and the University of Montana, where he received a B. A. in journalism. Kantner’s writings and photographs have appeared in Outside, Prairie Schooner, Alaska, and Reader’s Digest, among other anthologies and publications. His work and writing have earned him the Whiting Writers Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and the Milkweed National Fiction Prize among many others. He lives with his wife and daughter in northwest Alaska.

Edition details

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1571310444
• ISBN 13: 9781571310446
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 324