History of Wolves

At the core, this novel is about how a crime can be accounted for and who should be held responsible. It attempts to answer these questions through the theme of complicity and guilt. An obvious, but extremely complicated, symbol of this theme is Mr. Grierson. Linda looks upon him sympathetically, even claiming him to be innocent, but the novel will not let him off as easily. Though Lily falsifies an account of an assault, the novel routinely returns to his past crime of keeping lude photographs of children in his apartment. The issue, though, is that just because Mr. Grierson is innocent of one crime, does not make him innocent of another. After Lily confesses to having made up the story of her and Mr. Grierson, Mr. Grierson confesses to having thought about it: “I can’t face my own thoughts. They are not thoughts I want to face […] I didn’t touch that girl, but […] I thought out worse things than she said” (133). Through Mr. Grierson, the novel explores the central issue of thinking versus acting, and whether someone is guilty because of their thoughts. Legally speaking, the court cannot convict Mr. Grierson for his thoughts. However, the novel uses this complicated portrayal of crimes to elucidate that the area between guilty and innocent is far greater and vastly more entangled than one might think; they are not two mutually exclusive poles.   

Mr. Grierson acts as a parallel for Linda as she attempts to come to terms with her role in Paul’s death. Though Linda’s guilt is far more complex than Mr. Grierson’s, Fridlund effectively employs her character to explore complicity and the responsibility of an onlooker. Though Linda loved Paul and didn’t know he was in danger, the novel explores whether her presence—and the many, many signs she ignored—make her culpable in his death. However, it is far more complicated than that. At the trial, when someone tells Linda she must have “sensed something was off” (150), she can only reply: “Maybe.” Because, to her, the events of “nausea, headache, coma, etcetera” really happened as “tall ships, car ride home, Good Kind Wenceslas, bed” (15). 

Hindsight allows Linda to understand that her suspicions might have been there, but she was too naïve—or too blinded by happiness—to act. At the time, she was a child and vastly inexperienced in interacting with adults. However, every chance Linda does have to get help, she backs out. When in town for the Tylenol, she seeks out places she thinks she’ll meet someone who will stop her, betraying her subconscious desire to have someone interfere. Then, when Linda gets a ride from a family who suspects something is wrong, she remains silent, fearing that her pleas for help will mean “the end of everything worthwhile” (268). Therefore, she becomes complicit, not guilty, in Paul’s death by only thinking of acting, but never truly doing anything to protect the child. 

Overall, the novel explores this theme with contrasting “It’s not what you do but what you think that matters” (249) with “it’s not what you think but what you do that matters” (255). Patra and Leo excuse their worries with the former, but the latter may have saved their son’s life. In this way, the novel presents Patra and Leo as guilty, rather than complicit, for they were the adults that actively chose thoughts over actions. For Linda, her thoughts of helping Paul are ultimately meaningless; she becomes obsessed with these contrasting ways of thinking because one absolves her while the other condemns her. 

By making this novel a bildungsroman, Fridlund subscribes and subverts conventions typical of the genre. She adheres to coming of age archetypes by centering her story on the sexual awakening and life-alerting events of a teenage girl’s life. She undermines the genre, however, by showing the corrupting influence of first love and refusing to have her heroine grow from her trauma. First, Fridlund ties Linda’s sexual awakening to both the fascination with the assault of a classmate and then to a much older woman who cannot and will not return her affections. Linda becomes obsessed with the thought of Lily and Mr. Grierson, even “masturbat[ing] miserably” (111) after spending the day thinking of them. Her fascination isn’t with the assault itself—she gives no indication that she even thinks of it as that—but with the idea of being desired like Lily. With Patra, Linda’s attraction begins with how Patra sees her and treats her as an adult: I saw how quickly she shifted between faces, between soothing mother and conspiratorial adult. It pleased me for reasons I could not explain to be part of the latter allegiance” (34-35). Linda, who has wanted more than anything to appear knowledgeable and mature, finds someone who will not only give her attention, but offers it as an equal. 

Soon, though, Linda’s crush becomes corrupting, keeping her from seeing how ill Paul is and keeping her from seeking help: “I’d done exactly what Patra asked, and no more, so it felt almost heroic […] how little I’d accomplished” (265). Out of fear of disappointing Patra, Linda chooses not to get the help Paul desperately needs. Therefore, a great part of growing up for Linda is navigating, and then overcoming, her feelings for Patra. Love is often a device used in a bildungsroman for the heroine’s emotional growth, but Fridlund subverts this tradition with Linda’s feelings for Patra; love doesn’t save Patra and Paul but draws Linda further into complicity. 

Fridlund also uses this theme to demonstrate how perspective, even knowledge, changes as we grow. For Linda, her perspective changes when she learns the truth about her mother joining the commune at 33, “when she should have known better” (223). This demonstrates, for Linda as well as the reader, that adults can be as susceptible to false dogma as children. This acts as a parallel for Patra; though young, she is well past old enough to know that her son needed medical attention. Therefore, a part of growing up for Linda is learning that adults, too, make great lapses in judgement. 

After the events of that summer, the woods change because Linda has forever changed; she sees the woods scientifically now, as a series of electrons and carbon dioxide. The two most important people in her life are gone forever: “[T]here was no changing the loneliness” (269). The trauma of losing Paul—of playing a part in his death—is something Linda doesn’t confront, and therefore, it never leaves her. She grows up with the weight of this burden. Fridlund, rather than giving her heroine the emotional release of forgiveness—from Patra or from herself—condemns Linda to carry this trauma always. Unlike a typical bildungsroman, History of Wolves demonstrates that trauma does not always function as a plot device for the protagonist’s growth, and, in fact, questions the efficacy of this literary tradition.