In the Nook

San Francisco is the town of nooks, so I took some shots of reading nooks as I walked around the Nob And Russian Hill areas.

I just finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. I don't really know how I feel about the book. The writing is beautiful, the kind that just rolls off the page but the story was weird and I think it was good weird. I guess I'm still not sure what the book is about or who the book is about. Both Edgar and the dogs are the main characters and are treated so similarily by the author. Edgar is mute but the family and the dogs learn his sign language. He has an active relationship with a number of ghosts/spirits and there is a lot of hand wringing over what the dogs mean but neither of those two large plot details are really ever explained. When I finished the book I wasn't really sure what happened.

To be sure its a unique book and the writing alone is worth reading it. The characters, especially the mother, are written with a few descriptive strokes and for the most part I understood them only in relation to the dogs and the place, especially the barn. There are a few disturbing scenes that are not for the squeemish and a constant anxiety over the fate of Edgar, the dogs, his mom, and the sense of lineage for all of them.