The Work of Wolves by Kent Meyers

June 2013

Before this meeting began a woman walked by our table with a small newborn prompting Sandy to announce to the entire restaurant, “Oh my Gawd look how small that baby is! It’s the smallest baby I’ve ever seen! It must be brand new; she just had it in the bathroom!”

K’Lynn – Chose this because she had read The River Warren by the author and she really liked his use of metaphors and characterizations so The Work of Wolves has been on her list for a while. She was unsure about going with a Western, but its glowing reviews convinced her. She finds Meyers to be a great storyteller and thought he did an excellent job weaving together cowboy, Lakota, and German heritages. She thought the characters were deeply engaging and very interesting, but was annoyed with the long flashback narrative at first. Later she came to realize these narratives were significant to each character. She loved Earl Walks Alone’s sarcastic inner-documentary voice. The love story between Carson and Rebecca was too predictable for her to enjoy.

Miles – Thought this was an interesting, original pick. He saw in Carson the classic Western psyche and found his character appealing. He thought the male characters were developed from the outside in via many different stories from their youth, which fully revealed their characters by the end. The female characters however, weren’t well developed at all. Ted Who Kills Many was a fascinating character and Miles particularly enjoyed the car on fire, then on ice scene because it was impossible to predict Ted. Would he hop in the car, or not? The author didn’t seem to work too hard but let things develop naturally and Miles enjoyed reading it without thinking too much about it.

Maggie – This was the first book club book in a long time that she has just wanted to sit and read without putting it aside. She found friendships and relationships to be its central theme and found them woven into all parts of the story. The love story played a pivotal role because without it, Magnus wouldn’t have had anything to be mad about. She liked the fact that Carson and Rebecca never consummated their love. She thought Willi was a totally off-key character to throw in, and found it very interesting that he was there. She loved this passage describing Carson: He shivered. He was landless and woman-less. All he had was money. He didn’t know what he’d do with it. Didn’t know what its point could be.

Michelle  – Called this a New-Age Western. She doesn’t like books that are excessively descriptive and thought 100 pages could have been cut. “This is not the kind of writing I like,” she thought at the beginning. Carson’s dialect was different from everyone else’s, which bugged her. She noted that each of the three boys had a deep history with their grandparents and therefore had many connections to the past giving them unique perspectives.  She confused Willi and Earl’s grandmother’s for a while and wondered why Willi’s grandma was in South Dakota. Perhaps because of this the German subplot was lost upon her. Once she read about the riding lessons it was obvious what was going to happen between Rebecca and Carson. The last paragraph confused her. How could Carson’s dad not know his love for horses when he walked Carson to them as a child?  She probably wouldn’t recommend, but enjoyed it herself.   

Sandy – Sandy thought she would hate the book and confessed that Indian crap drives her insane. A few bon mots from this rant, “Get off the reservation and quit complaining! I hate it so much! For God sakes get off the reservation if you’re an alcoholic!” Here Sandy paused to fan herself with a menu and said, “Ah, one wine and a be-ah; I’m so hot!” and then, “When he described the glass bead colors. Oh my Gawd! Everybody conspired against the Indians. The Corp (sic-it's pronounced 'core', Sandy) of Engineers built that dam for water, not to flood your home!” Having purged herself she began talking about the story and described Magnus as a poor man’s J.R. Ewing, and thought he would have been a better-developed character if he were more like him. The Nazi parts were distracting and she didn’t want to hear it. She was pissed at Carson for his selfish hissy-fit when his parents considered selling the farm. The killing of the horses was so sad, and she thought Magnus had won when this happened. She would recommend if the person were patient enough to read the 'blah, blah, blah' parts. She thought it was a fast read and couldn’t put it down.

Leticia – started off by saying that Carson must have been well hung. This had something to do with a private conversation between her and Sandy regarding Carson’s stoic personality, but she didn’t elaborate. She too, was annoyed with Carson’s diction. She wondered if Westerns are more a caricature of themselves than other genres. She noted that Ted Kills Many was the only one who wasn’t solitary, being surrounded by dogs and people. She found it easy to read and entertaining and would recommend, but found it occasionally contrived, especially the Indian names and how the Nazis were worked into the story. Every character including the horses was in their own cage, just like Willi’s Grandma said. She found it interesting that many Germans are fascinated with the Lakota culture.

Carolyn – Liked Ted Kills Man. She saw him as someone who just wanted to succeed at something, and felt sorry for him when the horses escaped his property. She loved his joke about the secret Lakota society that wears lederhosen and plays polka music, and his line, “It’s boring to see where you’re going” while driving sans headlights in the night. She thought there were conversations that would stretch on for page after page with very little said. The Lebensborn project was weird. She liked the first description or two of plastic bags, but they became so frequent she found them distracting. She thought that when Greggy pulled them over toward the end of the story it was his way of telling them that they were right about the horses.

Pat – I had high expectations when the quote on the cover said it was the best western-styled fiction since Lonesome Dove. I liked Carson’s character and thought his voice was authentic. It wasn’t realistic that the characters were relatively unfamiliar with each other, because in a small community everyone knows everybody fairly well. Was there some sort of connection to be made between the fact that there were three horses and three boys? The boys struggled with their sense of purpose, and horses don’t really have the purpose that they used to in a Western. They used to be vital, but now are just kind of ornamental. Meh. Not much of a connection. I thought the story had good bones but way too many words. Did he really need a full paragraph to describe taking a leak and lighting a cigarette? These interminable descriptions drove me nuts. Although Miles noted this might be because I only had a couple of days to read it. I enjoyed the dialogue much more than reading what they were thinking and why for five pages a stretch.

Becky - Such a pity to miss this discussion, I'm sorry about that.  I just sat back and relished this novel from the get-go. There was so much to it, and it didn't go down the path I feared, an out and out affair between Carson and Rebecca. I was afraid it would be predictable, but it had some twists that I definitely did not anticipate.  Willi's grandmother defined the theme of cages, which was woven throughout .  Carson's father was trapped in his own cage, working on the ranch he didn't love, then further separated from Carson when Carson chose his grandfather and horses over his father.   Magnus was similarly trapped by money and power and control, all consuming needs which alienated him from reason and being able to relate to others.  Perhaps the same argument could be made for all of the characters; caged by the lives they were born into.  The horses being fenced and left to starve was the most blatant example. Magnus' abuse of animals, first the cow, then the horses, made him truly vile; funny how being cruel to people does not always raise quite the indignation as cruelty to animals.  Even though I know they couldn't, and wouldn't, murder Magnus, it was the preferable solution to sacrificing the horses :)  That was such a solemn and sad scene, and I could feel the pain of Carson, Earl, Ted and Willi at having to go through with it.  I found all four of them to be very sympathetic. The ending was also satisfying in that it left the question open of a happy ending for Carson without being pat.  He was left a bit lost, with money yet no ranch and no Rebecca, but he had his own victory over Magnus which counterbalanced Magnus' buying his home out from under him. I really enjoyed the dialog between the characters - concise, short, direct.  There were a few times I skimmed some long-winded descriptions, my only complaint.I'm curious what everyone thought. My rating is 8.5. Good choice K'Lynn, 400 pages and all. 


The next book is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert.