Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult (2012)
I thought this story was rather far-fetched with respect to Luke Warren, who is portrayed to be a wolf biologist who actually lived in the wild with wolves for two years. That aside, this is a novel about a dysfunctional family (aren't all families dysfunctional?), yet have to deal with a family member who has suffered irreparable brain injury.
The author does a good job at keeping the suspense, as family secrets are not divulged, and the reader is kept guessing as to causes of the family split.
Luke, Georgie, Edward and Cara were a family until Luke's research took him into the wild. When he returned, he was a changed man. At age 18, Edward and his father had a fight, ostensibly because Edward revealed to his father that he was gay. The fight was enough so that Edward suddenly left the family and moved to Thailand where he got a job teaching English. Luke and Georgie divorced; Georgie remarried and began a new family. Cara moved in with her father.
One night, Luke and Cara were in a car accident that left Luke permanently brain damaged. Cara suffers from extreme guilt, thinking that she was the cause of the accident. When Georgie learns of the accident, she immediately called Edward and asked him to return.
Much of the deals with the ethics of ending a terminal life. Jodi raises interesting points. Throughout the novel are passages from Luke, as he discusses the lives of wolves and how they can correspond to human lives.
3 Stars
Read: December 20, 2015
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