Annie and the Wolves
Andromeda Romano-Lax
ISBN: 9781641291699
Published: 02/02/2021
Pricing
Hardcover $27.95
More books by Andromeda Romano-Lax
Description
A modern-day historian finds her life intertwined with Annie Oakley's in an electrifying novel that explores female revenge an the allure of changing one's past. Ruth McClintock is obsessed with Annie Oakley. For nearly a decade, she has been studying the legendary sharpshooter, convinced that a scarring childhood event was the impetus fo...
A modern-day historian finds her life intertwined with Annie Oakley’s in an electrifying novel that explores female revenge an the allure of changing one’s past. Ruth McClintock is obsessed with Annie Oakley. For nearly a decade, she has been studying the legendary sharpshooter, convinced that a scarring childhood event was the impetus for her crusade to arm every American woman. This fruitless search has cost Ruth her doctorate, a book deal, and her fiancé. But Ruth may finally have the evidence she is looking for. She has managed to hunt down what may be a journal of Oakley’s midlife struggles, including secret visits to a psychoanalyst and the desire for vengeance against the “Wolves,” or those who have wronged her. With the help of Reece, a tech-savvy senior at the local high school, Ruth attempts to establish the journal’s provenance, but she’s begun to have jarring out-of-body episodes that are possibly parallel to Annie’s own lived experiences. As she solves Annie’s mysteries, she also confronts her own, from the reasons behind her teenage sister’s suicide to a tragedy in her Minnesota town that she may be able to prevent.
Media
“I have long been a fan of Andromeda Romano-Lax’s work, and this is her best novel yet. Separated by more than a century, the lives of American icon Annie Oakley and modern historian Ruth McClintock are intertwined in ways you could never guess. Delving into the human psyche, the novel explores how we navigate time and memory, and how we struggle to heal from trauma both historically and on a deeply personal level. Are justice and revenge the answer? Or can we dare to hope to change the past? When this story grabs hold of you, and it will, there will be no setting it down until you’ve finished the last page. A morally complex, genre-shattering thriller.”
—Eowyn Ivey, on Annie and the Wolves
“On its most powerful level, the book is a hyperactive psychological thriller, exploring the enduring damage done by childhood trauma and the need to mine and process it to become healthy, and the various ways in which victims do so . . . A highly imaginative and compelling read.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune, on Annie and the Wolves
“The introduction of the time travel is so adeptly written that the idea of this kind of element doesn’t seem out of the ordinary...the book reads like literary or historical fiction, even though many different current topics are addressed within its pages, like school violence, suicide and sexual abuse.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“I’ve always held a special place in my heart for Annie Oakley, and Andromeda Romano-Lax has forever transformed my vision of the famous sharpshooter in such a fresh, deep, moving way. I love how this novel plays with the malleability of time—how trauma can alter it, how healing can transcend it, how human connection can enrich it immeasurably. Time disappeared as I read Annie and the Wolves—a compelling, unforgettable read.”
—Gayle Brandeis, award–winning author of The Book of Dead Birds
“Daring and imaginative Romano-Lax puts another provocative spin on historical fiction as she has both Ruth McClintock, a struggling small-town Minnesota historian,and her obsession, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, take turns narrating in this highly original time-warping tale . . . As she illuminates Oakley’s extraordinary life, Romano-Lax conjures supernatural dimensions in pursuit of psychological revelations, grapples with the sexual predation of 'wolves' and the muzzle of shame, and dramatizes the slipperiness of memory and history, creating a compassionate, heady, and witty whirl of fact and insight, mesmerizing characters and suspenseful predicaments.”