Etna

Narrated entirely from the perspective of a dog, the novel unfolds in an unnamed war-torn country where animals communicate silently with one another and, in rare cases, with certain humans.

Etna, a mixed-breed shepherd, is born on a coastal farm where his mother, siblings, goats, and many birds live under the care of a gentle couple. His peaceful early life ends when the couple begins whispering about fighting along a far border. A young army doctor named Soojin arrives in a pickup truck, seeking dogs for incoming North American and European military forces. She selects Etna, separating him from his mother. In the truck, Etna meets Fuji, another dog his age, and discovers that Soojin can communicate silently with certain dogs; her thoughts arrive in his mind as bright vibrations. She names him Etna, after the volcano on Sicily, and makes both dogs promise to survive, look out for each other, and find her when the war ends. Then she drops them at a gas station full of soldiers and departs.

At an American military base, Etna and Fuji undergo five months of intensive training. Each dog is paired with a handler: Etna's is Jason, a steady man with thick palms whose parents were born in this country, and Fuji's is Brian, a giant man with giant laughter. Etna trains to detect explosives by their sweet vapors, to attack on command, and to run across fields under gunfire. When the war worsens, the dogs are divided by specialty. Etna and Fuji join a unit of sappers, combat engineers tasked with clearing land mines, unexploded ordnance (UXO), and improvised explosive devices.

Four years of war follow. The unit traverses the country, clearing mines, roads, and houses, fighting and killing. Etna is injured six times, Fuji five. In the third year, Fuji runs off during a mountain furlough without explanation, and Etna never sees her again. Early in the fourth year, Brian makes a fatal mistake defusing anti-tank mines. Jason grabs Etna, runs, counts four seconds aloud, and hurls him as far as he can, shielding Etna with his body as the mine explodes. Both Jason and Brian die. By the time the fighting ends, Etna is the only dog left from his original unit.

Back at the American base, the last two men in Etna's unit debate whether to take him to California or euthanize him. Etna decides to leave. He wants to go home to the farm, even though he suspects it no longer exists. That night, he walks out past sentries who do not stop him.

He walks for days through bombed roads and burned forests until he reaches an overgrown field where a former way station stands near abandoned train tracks. An old, blind dog with a wartime-disfigured nose paces out front, overjoyed to meet another animal after years alone. The old dog belonged to the station owners, a family of three who fled into the field when bombs fell. Wounded and unable to smell or see, he begs Etna to find their remains. Etna sweeps the field through the night. He finds the remains of two family members but not the third. Before departing, he leaves food and water in the way station's garden.

Etna follows the tracks toward the city, eventually riding a cargo train full of missionaries. When he realizes they are heading inland, he leaps off. The city is in ruins, with shanty towns along a river. Three dogs attack Etna at the riverbank until a man named Hong, a former army doctor conducting a census of displaced survivors, drives them off and bandages his shoulder. A younger stray named Semeru, a gray-coated city dog who witnessed the fight, approaches Etna. Semeru reveals that a woman from the mountains gave him his name and can communicate with dogs, just as Soojin can.

Semeru guides Etna through the city, showing him the clinic where Hong and his partner, a doctor, treat patients. A donkey advises Etna to ask birds for directions to the sea and warns them away from the mountains, where armed groups fight over medicine. At night, Etna overhears Hong telling the doctor that if the dog survived, they will too.

When a supply truck arrives from the mountains, Etna and Semeru jump aboard. On the mountain road, armed men ambush them. The driver flees, Hong returns fire, and Etna kills one of the shooters. They abandon the truck and enter the forest on foot. In a clearing, they find a stone well both dogs recognize from recurring dreams. Soojin appears, carrying a rifle and a medicine bag she recovered from the ambushers. She greets Etna but has not seen Fuji since dropping them off years ago. Soojin confirms that the coast was destroyed and the farm is gone. Etna insists he still wants to go home. Soojin promises to deliver the medicine and then take him to the coast, asking that he bring Semeru.

At a mountain village, Hong administers medicine while Soojin shares her life story with the dogs. In an intimate moment, she touches her nose to Etna's, and through her open mouth he detects four tumors deep in her body, possibly a fifth. She already knows. She tells him she is glad for these two days together and notes they never made it to Sicily.

They leave at dusk, pursued by armed men, and take a road marked with UXO warnings. Etna clears a path, walking with his nose to the ground and sitting each time he detects a device. They get through, but a collapsed mountainside blocks the way with only a waterfall beyond. As they retrace their steps, a firefight erupts. Hong is shot in the head and falls into the waterfall. Soojin, hit in the stomach and fatally wounded, tells the dogs to follow the water. With her last strength, she throws first Semeru and then Etna over the cliff into the rushing river.

Etna tumbles through the water, nearly losing consciousness. Semeru, despite a bullet graze on his leg, pulls Etna from the river by the scruff, then collapses. His chest rises and falls too quickly, then stops. Etna lies beside him, drifting in and out of consciousness through days and nights of sunlight, moonlight, and fog. Eventually a man with a wheelbarrow finds him and carries him away.

Etna wakes on a cliff overlooking the coastline. An enormous, brightly feathered bird speaks to him from a branch above, her voice blending with the tide. She tells him a hermit named Achilles, a Greek war survivor, found and nursed him. The bird describes an animal sanctuary beyond a point on the coast, run by kind humans who did not abandon the animals. Etna believes this may be the place where he was born. The bird reveals that "Etna" means "to burn" in Greek and tells him he has a long time left to live. Before departing, she points out three young dogs trotting along the distant beach and calls them Etna's future. Her words echo the novel's opening, completing a circle from Etna's birth to his return. The bird flies away, and Etna walks to the shade of a tree to rest, recover, and wait.