The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

In 1919, John Sawtelle and his wife Violet purchase a farm in northern Wisconsin to pursue his dream of breeding dogs. Impressed by the theoretical work of Blessed Gregor Mendel, a monk in Czechoslovakia who produced groundbreaking studies on crossbreeding pea plants, Sewell is intent on creating an entirely new breed of dog after he chances to meet a magnificent dog owned by a neighbor: “It was one of those rare days when everything in a person’s life feels connected” (15).

Over the years, John’s experiments with breeding dogs become more sophisticated. He dreams of breeding a dog capable of logical decisions. He and Violent have two sons, Edgar and Claude, “as different from each other as night and day” (19). Although Claude leaves the farm as soon as he could for a life of adventure in the navy, Edgar—nicknamed Gar—stays and, with his wife Gertrude (Trudy), runs the kennel after John’s death. Gar and Trudy, after several miscarriages, have a son in 1958 whom they name Edgar.

The new baby unsettles the family dog, Almondine. She understands intuitively that the “house was keeping a secret from her” (30). The secret, she feels, has something to do with the squirmy but oddly quiet newborn. Her sleep is bothered by her nagging sense that something is not quite right in the house. Almondine, “quivering with curiosity” (33), is the first to understand the newborn cannot make a sound. 

Trudy realizes her infant son is mute. The anxious parents hope their baby will grow out of it and come into his voice. After enduring multiple miscarriages, however, they are thankful for the baby, “squalling or mute” (37).

A neighbor, Ida Paine, introduces the couple to Louisa Wilkes who runs a small family grocery store. She counsels them that the baby’s inability to speak may be a permanent condition, and that both parents with patience can master sign language. In time, they can share the language with their son. Almondine assumes special responsibilities to protect the baby. 

In the week after the storm, Edgar senses tensions rising in the house. He learns that his uncle, Claude, is leaving the navy and would be returning to the farm after years. Trudy prepares a spare room for Claude.

When Edgar first meets his uncle, “his impression was of someone quite different from his father” (58). His uncle seems “haunted” (60) and “secretive” (61). The first night Claude inelegantly gets drunk after dinner and passes out. The next day, he inspects the barn with Gar, and the brothers agree to work together to repair it. Claude tells Edgar how happy he is just to be outside. During his long tenure in the navy, Claude became accustomed to cramped living quarters with “little room, not much sun” (65). He feels free now.

A few days after Claude’s arrival, Edgar and his father spot a large, beautiful stray dog on their property. Driven by hunger, the stray edges close to the kennel buildings. Thinking it might belong to a neighboring farm, Gar calls the neighbors but to no avail. When he and Edgar spot the dog again, Gar puts out meat, and while the hungry dog eats, Gar studies its lines and decides it is a purebred German Shepherd. Claude, seeing only a danger in the stray, dismisses it as a “usurper” and a “trespasser” (85). He advises Gar to poison the animal with strychnine. Gar decides to try to catch the dog with bowls of kibbles and take it to an animal rescue shelter.

Claude shares with Edgar a story about Gar who as a teenager had an intimidating dog named Forte. At the time, Gar was a rebel—he was a loner who drank a lot and got into fights, and the muscled dog was his perfect companion. Gar brokered fights between Forte and other dogs for wagering. One night when Forte refused to fight, an upset and drunk Gar shot his own dog dead. That trauma, Claude tells Edgar, is why his father will never poison this stray.

Despite efforts to lure the stray dog using the splayed carcasses of deer, the dog, whom Edgar decides to call Forte, eludes capture. Gar only manages to get close to the animal using kibbles as treats.

With the end of the school year approaching, Gar asks Edgar whether he would like to raise a litter by himself. The dog Iris is expecting to deliver any day, and Gar offers Edgar the chance to work with her pups. Edgar excitedly agrees. The next several days, Edgar hovers over Iris in the whelping room. He ministers to the struggling, panting Iris through the difficult delivery of seven pups. After the birthing, at nearly three in the morning, Edgar still refuses to leave the whelping room. Rather, he takes a dictionary out to the barn and begins to search for names for the squirming pups, his new charges.

It is early fall. The pups are now four months old. Edgar understands the importance of training the pups from the earliest moment. He spends time in the kennel working with the “clumsy, happy beasts” (105). With the barn roof repaired, Claude takes over training a different litter. Edgar notices how sloppy and careless Claude is with the pups, and how his indifference to the work of discipline creates chaos within the litter.

Tensions increase between Gar and his brother. Those tensions erupt one late fall day when the brothers take the tractor out to load up on firewood for the winter. When rain starts, Gar understands only a fool would try to work a chainsaw in such dangerous conditions. But Claude, grinning and undeterred, begins to work a fallen log with the saw. Gar is stunned and angry. Trudy later tells a fuming Gar that he cannot ride his brother as if he were a child.

Just after Thanksgiving, Edgar wakes one night to strange noises. He finds his brother and his uncle fighting outside in falling snow. As Edgar watches from the window, Claude grabs the keys to his Impala off the ground and drives angrily away.

Over the next few days, Edgar’s mother reassures him that the brothers had long been at odds, and that Claude staying on the farm would never have worked out. The “thing” between the brothers, she tells him, is “old, since they were children” (117). Claude moves out and takes a parttime job in town with the veterinarian Dr. Papineau.

As the holidays pass, Edgar works with his litter, training them to follow commands. Each pup develops their own personality, and Edgar understands their temperaments are different. On a break during his training sessions, Edgar finds his father sprawled on the floor of the barn. Gar is motionless and barely breathing. Edgar panics. He cannot communicate with his father. He runs to the house and tries to call the operator, but he can only grunt. Frustrated, he throws the phone against the wall and returns to the barn, this time with Almondine. Uncertain what else to do, he collapses to the floor beside his father.

Dr. Papineau, who happens to be driving by, sees the barn door swinging open and stops. He finds Edgar crouching by the sprawled Gar. He determines that Gar is dead. Dr. Papineau ushers the boy to the house and calls for emergency help. Trudy, who is shopping, returns and tries to put on a calm face for her son. Dr. Papineau asks Edgar about finding his father, but Trudy fears the questions will only make Edgar feel responsible. She asks her son a few questions but stops. Facing now life without Gar, she resolves, with her son’s help, to keep the kennel running.