The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle would make a satisfying murder mystery. The sudden death of wealthy farm operator Gar Sawtelle in a remote corner of rural Wisconsin puzzles even the coroner who does not quite buy his own findings of an aneurysm. The novel could easily have evolved in an elaborate whodunnit with young Edgar performing the role of diligent detective, driven by his certainty that the coroner’s report is a bit too suspiciously tidy.

As Edgar begins the methodical work of examining the barn for evidence, based as much on hunches as on ratiocination, the novel deconstructs the straightforward drive of a conventional mystery. The author interrupts the plot with interventions of what can only be described as evidence of the supernatural. Edgar is troubled by dreams in which his father tries to say “something, something important” (183) but cannot. When Edgar pokes around the kennel barn, sensing vaguely that there must be something there, he finds the hidden syringe. The revelation of the syringe hinges on the apparent reality of the ghost who directs Edgar in the search. The ghost then directs Edgar to look into a dog that the farm bred years earlier. This will alert Edgar to the real threat of his uncle, as that dog represented a significant step in the Sawtelle vision of creating a better canine. And at the pitch of the barn fire, Gar’s ghost returns to ensure the death of Claude by amping up the black smoke in the barn and then welcoming his son to his side. These elements of the supernatural are further enhanced by the chapters related from the perspective of Almondine, Edgar’s childhood dog, who is capable of thought and logic.

These elements are jarring in what otherwise would be a realistic novel about murder and greed in a family kennel business. The supernatural touches elevate the emotional mess of this dysfunctional Wisconsin family to the tragic. In introducing similar effects found in Hamlet, the novel elevates the Sawtelle family into the tragic and creates a grander feel about the family. The murder of Gar Sawtelle, then, is more than a crime. After all, Claude is never arrested, and for most of the novel the sheriff believes that Edgar is responsible. With the amplification of the ghost and later a series of tornadoes, the murder unleashes repercussions that reverberate in the very cosmos and summon powerful paranormal phenomena. The murder of Gar disrupts the order of things, and the world must be made right again. Gar crosses the boundary separating this world from the afterlife to ensure that his brother does not get away with his death. Nothing less than tornadoes convinces Edgar to stop running.

Whether the outraged ghost of the dead father or the insights of the family dog, these agents of the supernatural provide the novel its moral compass. These elements express outrage over the twisted, selfish, and threatening presence of the novel’s antagonist, the despicable Claude. Without the ghost of Gar and the sensitive observations of Almondine, the novel would lose some of its moral grounding.

In a novel about the rise and fall of the Sawtelle family, none of the four principal characters is able to witness—that is, to both see and tell (saw-tell)—what they have seen. That failure of communication drives the tragedy of the family. Communication here fails. The entire tragedy of the closing 10 chapters begins when Edgar leaves a completely innocuous note for his mother on the kitchen table telling her that he has returned. Claude intercepts the note and uses it to sic the sheriff on Edgar, a move resulting in the catastrophic fire that brings the end of the Sawtelle family.

Trudy maintains a distance from the murders of her husband and her son. Her position in the closing chapter, waiting frantically outside the burning barn, summarizes her position: She is a part of the family, yet apart. Because she never witnesses anything firsthand, she struggles to communicate with her troubled son, and she too quickly trusts her scheming brother-in-law. Claude knows the truth of both murders, but, given his gifts for circumlocution and deception, he never communicates what he knows, Edgar is not witness to his father’s murder but is convinced the aneurysm explanation is bogus. He nevertheless struggles to convey to his mother his growing certainty that the uncle is a clear and present danger. Even Gar, who knows firsthand the circumstances of his own murder, conveys the novel’s most difficult truths only through the shadowy, fragmented communications of a ghost—communication that Edgar struggles to decode.

The novel explores the toxic effects of failed communication within this family. The fall of the Sawtelle family is structured around secrets that are never shared. Relationships are skewered because of deceptions. Agendas are cloaked in secrecy, including Claude’s long-term goal of usurping everything his brother built and Glen’s determination to bend the law to bring in Edgar for interrogation. By depicting messages never delivered and casual lies offered without irony—most notably when a desperate Edgar actually avails himself of the hospitality of a man he just robbed—the novel offers a dark and troubling world where language fails to fulfill its most ancient function: to provide a community forged by shared communication.