Wolf at the Door

by Travis Jeppesen

A sculptor dying of a mysterious illness leaves the city behind in order to live out his final days in solitude in a village somewhere in Eastern Europe. His sole contact is with a deaf-mute gravedigger named Vojtech, a golem-like figure who delivers the necessary provisions — when he remembers to show up. A nameless wanderer traverses the barren streets of an unknown city in search of his next prey ...

Author of the critically acclaimed novel Victims, Travis Jeppesen has sculpted an absurdist drama of banal interactions via two parallel stories that never directly intersect, but rather hover interdependently in a polluted atmospheric stasis. Rife with ghosts and illusions perdues, at times violent and scatological, Wolf at the Door confronts fear and devastation, destruction and creation, the decay of both spirit and body with a blend of intense black humor and linguistic inventiveness that dares to ponder what happens after The End: of both art and life.

Genres: Fiction, United States

170 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2007

About the author

Travis Jeppesen is the author of Settlers Landing, Victims, Wolf at the Door, The Suiciders, All Fall, 16 Sculptures, and See You Again in Pyongyang, among other books.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

i have very little patience for this kind of writing. this book is, in fact, "two parallel stories that never directly intersect, but rather hover interdependently in a polluted atmospheric stasis". hover further away please...

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another strange book from Travis Jeppesen. A book that many people will hate, and understandably so. It consists of two separate and unrelated stories that never intersect; one of a dying man living out his final days in a village in Eastern Europe, the other of a sadistic killer with a dark past. The prose is raw and fractured, speaking in fragments. It oscillates between straight forward linear narrative and dream-like stream of consciousness bordering on poetry. At times disturbing, at times humorous and absurd.

Scratch that too mundane. Too mundane to maintain. In my youth I was in a boy band. Frogs jumped out of his anus, everything I can remember, why not repeat it all once again. Love those holes that seem to comprise the sky, perhaps I'm imagining once again I am in a room surrounded by substance. Don't laugh as the final shadow falls across the floor.

The language is brilliant at times, incomprehensible nonsense at others, but always unique and inventive. Didn't enjoy it as much as Victims, but I definitely enjoyed it nonetheless. I'm just not completely sure why....

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeppesen's moody farcical prose provided the detachment I needed. It took me out of my reality for those few hours and I'm thankful for that.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike anything I've read before. Compelling and quite disturbing.

[Milou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique story that made me put the book down and immediately pick it up again. It made me think about different views of life and in what way being pessimistic affects your outlook on life.

[Malcolm · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say these parallel but seemingly unrelated tales by two seriously disturbed people: one dying man's stream of consciousness, one not so stream-like? I had hoped for sort of redemptive ending, but finished up with misanthropy. Its shortness was a saving grace, other than for those who might appreciate writing that is the bastard child of Bukowski, Hubert Selby and James Joyce. I'll not be rushing out to find anything else he has written.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very intriguing because of its writing style, but further into the book it had some vulgar scenes that were quite unpleasant to read, but I suppose that is what the author was going for. I sold the book before I finished it, partly because I was scared what awful things I would read next. The risk wasn't worth finishing it.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

this sort of isolated prose has always been an absolute riot for me to read; I liked it for the most part. The brutalist stuff was a little much for me, but I understand its purpose within.