A Dream of Wolves
by Michael C. White
List Price: $24.00
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0060194324
Publisher: HarperCollins
Author of the critically acclaimed novels, A Brother's Blood and The Blind
Side of the Heart, Michael C. White weaves a brilliant tale of one man's
struggle to reconcile the beckoning nostalgia of the past with the allure
of a hopeful future, while carving out a livable niche in the present.
A transplanted Yankee, Dr.
Stuart Jordan has settled amidst the rugged beauty of the southern Blue
Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He lives a quiet, small-town life where
locals call him "Doc." By day Doe runs an OB/GYN practice, delivering
babies into the world and warmly tending to their mothers, but by night
he moonlights as the town's medical examiner, as he puts it, "working
the other end of the line." Since the tragic death of his son fourteen
years earlier, Doe has been willing to lose himself in the daily rhythms
of his job and of the mountains and its people. Yet he can't let go of
the past, a past which includes Annabel, his estranged, mentally ill wife.
Driven by drugs, alcohol, and her own raging demons, she floats in and
out of his life like a drifter, wreaking havoc and leaving nothing but
painful memories each time she disappears. Knowing that divorce would
be the best answer for both of them, Doc, however, can never quite bring
himself to abandon the woman he once so dearly loved. Instead, he loses
himself in his work, hoping to numb his pain.
But his quiet life is about
to be rudely jolted. One night he is called to the scene of a brutal murder
and unknowingly comes across three people who will forever change his
fate: Rosa Littlefoot, a young Native American woman who has gunned down
her abusive lover; her victim, Roy Lee Pugh, a white man related to a
violent hill-dwelling clan; and their baby daughter, Maria. Facing arrest
and separation from her daughter, Rosa refuses to hand over her baby safely
until she extracts a promise from Doe to see to it that her child is cared
for while she's in jail. He agrees for the child's sake. With this one
promise, Doe is slowly but forcefully drawn into a tangled web of lives
ripe with conflict and passion -- those of Rosa and her baby, the backwoods
Pugh clan, and Bobbie Tisdale, the local D.A., a beautiful woman who has
recently become Doe's lover. There is also the secret Rosa shares with
no one. Finally, there is the haunting presence of Annabel. Suddenly thrust
into this world of treachery, deceit, and love, Doe finds his heart struggling
to embrace an uncertain future and realizes he must fight the battle he
has been avoiding all these years.
At times charmingly sweet,
at times tensely thrilling, and always emotionally riveting, A Dream of
Wolves is a powerful and engaging novel that winds and weaves its way
through the bitter struggles and uplifting victories of life.
top of the page
1. Like many physicians, Stuart "Doc" Jordan, the narrator of the novel, works long hours. Is there any reason in his particular circumstance why he puts in such long hours?
2. Doc Jordan is, as he himself admits and as his friend, Cecil Clegg says, a Yankee, an outsider in this insular world of mountain people. What makes him such an ideal narrator? Why not a narrator who is from Hubbard County?
3. The Prologue begins with the following quote: "What I know of death is how hard we work to deserve it and how little we appreciate it when it finally comes." Given what happens later in the novel, what is the significance of this statement?
4. The women in Doc's life, his estranged wife Annabel and his new lover Bobbie, have very different personalities. What attracts Doc to each woman? Does he love each one?
5. Babies as well as the process of childbearing is very important to the novel. Discuss the various ways babies and woman giving birth are significant to the story.
6. The Appalachian Mountains and its people have been portrayed in various stereotypical ways, from Lil Abner to Deliverance. Doc himself admitted that when he first came to the region he also harbored similar stereotypes. Yet he says, "Slade, like most of the new South, was rapidly changing, sloughing off its small-town, bible-thumping, good-ole-boy skin." Discuss the ways the area is changing, breaking away from those stereotypes, and the effects those changes are having on its people and their traditions.
7. Doc Jordan is a man who is confronted by several moral, emotional, and legal choices? What are those choices and what are the repercussions of each?
8. There are several contradictions in Doc's life. For example, his day job, as he calls it, is nurturing life while his night job, that of part-time ME, is "working the other end of the line." Discuss this and other contradictions in his life.
9. Though Annabel says she wants Stu to be happy she continually returns and throws his life into chaos. Why does she keep coming back and why does he keep taking her in?
10. Several other women are important to Doc. Who are they and how are they significant to him? How do they affect him?
11. After Doc's meeting with Leonard Blackfox, when he learns about the events of the night of the murder, there's one thing that is still unclear to Doc. What is it and how does he handle it?
12. Dreams are an important device in the novel, starting right with the title. Discuss how dreams are used here.
13. At the end of the novel, Annabel leaves. However, even now Doc imagines her calling or returning some day. Do you think she will return?
top of the page
"A Dream of Wolves is that rare treat, an intelligent potboiler. White is clearly in control of the many characters here, and he skillfully evokes the class tensions, racism and anti-Yankee sentiment of this region. "
—The New York Times Book Review
"Taken on its own terms, this novel contains a fascinating collection of Southern customs. Its use of dialect is spare and elegant... male readers will recognize and sympathize with the doctor's timeless dilemma. "
—The Washington Post
"In addition to being beautifully written and intriguingly suspensful, A Dream of Wolves, is a marvelous evocation of place and character, right down to the flinty-eyed stare of the backwoods folk of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains. A raw and powerful achievement. "
—Anita Shreve, author
of The Pilot's Wife
"A Dream of Wolves is the work of a master craftsman. It is original, complicated, compelling and utterly believable, and Michael C. White makes it looks easy. A wonderful read. "
—Beth Gutcheon, author of Saying
Grace and Five Fortunes
