photo: ©Marion Ettlinger

The novelist talks with author and journalist Daniel Menaker about this deeply satisfying first novel—a multigenerational family story, great adventure, and murder mystery set in the farmlands of northern Wisconsin. This mesmerizing book centers on the coming of age of a mute teenage boy who has a rare ability to communicate with dogs.

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Performance playlist:

Reading
Ted Marcoux

Conversation
David Wroblewski and Daniel Menaker

David Wroblewski grew up in rural central Wisconsin, not far from the Chequamegon National Forest, where The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is set. He earned his master’s degree from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is his first novel, and is currently both a New York Times bestseller and a pick for Oprah’s Book Club. Over the years, Wroblewski has lived in La Crosse, Minneapolis, and Austin, Texas. Currently, he makes his home in Colorado with the writer Kimberly McClintock, their dog Lola, and their cat Mitsou.

Ted Marcoux has appeared in such movies as Dark Blue, Camp Stories, and Ghost in the Machine. His stage credits include A Few Good Men on Broadway, and Off Broadway performances in The Bells and Earth and Sky. He has appeared on television in The Practice, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Boston Public, 24, and Six Feet Under.

Daniel Menaker started his 26-year career at The New Yorker as a fact checker in 1969, rising through the ranks to become a senior editor specializing in fiction. There, he was the first editor to publish such newcomers as Michael Cunningham, Michael Chabon, and Jennifer Egan, and he also worked with well-recognized authors such as Alice Munro, Elmore Leonard, and Salman Rushdie. In 1995, he went to Random House as Vice President, Senior Literary Editor. The first novel he edited was the publishing phenomenon Primary Colors by Anonymous. In 2001, he became Executive Editor at Harper Collins, returning to Random House in 2003 as Editor-in-Chief of the Random House editorial imprints. He left Random House in 2007. He is Editorial Producer and Host of Titlepage.tv, is at work on a book about conversation called A Good Talk, and is teaching a course in narrative nonfiction at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of two books of short stories and a novel, The Treatment.