Ordinary Wolves: A Novel
Jan 2010 · Milkweed Editions
5.0star
4 reviewsreport
Ebook
343
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Eskimo and white culture collide in this national bestselling novel of life in the contemporary Alaskan wilderness: “A magnificently realized story” (New York Times Book Review).
Ordinary Wolves depicts a life different from what any of us has known: Inhuman cold, the taste of rancid salmon shared with shivering sled dogs, hunkering in a sod igloo while blizzards moan overhead. But this is the only world Cutuk Hawcley has ever known. Born and raised in the Arctic, he has learned to provide for himself by hunting, fishing, and trading. And yet, though he idolizes the indigenous hunters who have taught him how to survive, when he travels to the nearby Inupiaq village, he is jeered and pummeled by the native children for being white.
When Cutuk ventures into the society of his own people, two incompatible realities collide, perfectly capturing "the contrast between the wild world and our ravaging consumer culture”. In a powerful coming of age story, a young man isolated by his past must choose between two worlds, both seemingly bent on rejecting him (Louise Erdrich).
Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize
“As a revelation of the devastation modern America brings to a natural lifestyle, it's a tour de force and may be the best treatment of the Northwest and its people since Jack London's works.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Ordinary Wolves depicts a life different from what any of us has known: Inhuman cold, the taste of rancid salmon shared with shivering sled dogs, hunkering in a sod igloo while blizzards moan overhead. But this is the only world Cutuk Hawcley has ever known. Born and raised in the Arctic, he has learned to provide for himself by hunting, fishing, and trading. And yet, though he idolizes the indigenous hunters who have taught him how to survive, when he travels to the nearby Inupiaq village, he is jeered and pummeled by the native children for being white.
When Cutuk ventures into the society of his own people, two incompatible realities collide, perfectly capturing "the contrast between the wild world and our ravaging consumer culture”. In a powerful coming of age story, a young man isolated by his past must choose between two worlds, both seemingly bent on rejecting him (Louise Erdrich).
Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize
“As a revelation of the devastation modern America brings to a natural lifestyle, it's a tour de force and may be the best treatment of the Northwest and its people since Jack London's works.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Ratings and reviews
5.0
4 reviews
John Verhoog
- Flag inappropriate
September 9, 2023
Fantastic book. Unlike any other book I can remember. I enjoyed the story as much as the descriptions of life in Alaska.
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 simply on the land, wearing mukluks before they were fashionable, eating boiled caribou pelvis, and communing with the Iñupiaq, the native Eskimos of the region. With a photographer’s eye and a writer’s heart, Seth Kantner reveals an America unknown to many of us. 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, Switch!, Reader’s Digest, among other anthologies and publications. He lives with his wife and daughter in northwest Alaska. Ordinary Wolves is his first novel.
Contributor residences (city, state or country if outside the US or Canada): Kotzebue, Alaska.
Contributor residences (city, state or country if outside the US or Canada): Kotzebue, Alaska.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
