David Wroblewski is as surprised as anyone by the success of his first novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Bestselling author Stephen King wrote this about it:
I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Dog-lovers in particular will be riveted by this story, because the canine world has never been explored with such imagination or emotional resonance. Yet in the end, this isn't a novel about dogs or heartland America — although it is a deeply American work of literature. It's a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate. Yet in the person of Edgar Sawtelle, a mute boy who takes three of his dogs on a brave and dangerous odyssey, Wroblewski does articulate them, and splendidly. I closed the book with that regret readers feel only after experiencing the best stories: It's over, you think, and I won't read another one this good for a long, long time. [Click here to read this and other reviews.]Here's an excerpt from a PW interview with the author.
PW: Having made such a splash with your debut, are you worried about novel #2, and have you started work on it?
DW: I’m not worried about the second novel because one of the things I know is that you just have to sit down and do the work. So it’s not like I’m wringing my hands in any way over it. I have a basic story in mind; I have a character that I’m crazy about and I have a set of moments that are perfectly clear to me about what’s going to happen. But it’s in its very early days; it won’t be for a couple of weeks before I get going. But I’m sort of pawing at the ground and I know that you have to get a first draft done before you know what you’ve got. My sense is that I need to be quiet and eat my Wheaties and do the work—and it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. Basically I’ve no anxiety about living up in any sense to Edgar: it’s going to be a different story and it’ll have its strengths and weaknesses. I think it’s the only way to do it; otherwise you just tie yourself up in knots. I’m 48 years old and I’ve been making software for 30 years in my other career. I know that to get stuff done you sit down and it’s work. I think that’s one of the advantages to having an experience like this a little later in life than when you’re 20. [Click here to read the entire interview.]
