Author: Abbi Mancini
Header Image: Cover designs for Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Riftka Brunt
Welcome to the book club! Every month I’ll be reading a new book and writing about it here. Join me in the discussion on Twitter @abbikxsu and read along with me! Next month’s book is Mariana by Monica Dickens and can be found here.
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Riftka Brunt is a heartwarming story of a young girl, June Elbus, trying to find herself in the aftermath of the death of her person, her Uncle Finn. June and Finn are inseparable, spending every Sunday adventuring around Finn’s home in New York City. June is fourteen in 1987 when Finn dies, slowly withering away due to AIDS, a disease June knows little about, just what she hears on the news and from her older sister, Greta.
We enter the book with Finn painting the two sisters. He is a prestigious artist and wanted to immortalize the girls in a portrait, his last gift to them. June and Finn are the best of friends. June feels she is awkward and clunky, something most of us felt at the cusp of teenager-hood. Finn has a way of seeing the beauty in everything, looking at what others may miss, and finding what makes it special. Of course, June falls in love with this ability of his, as it obviously applies to her too. She loves how she felt he could read her mind, how he cared about her interests in medieval times, taking her to a renaissance fair every year and encouraging her games, pretending she lives in another time.
One Sunday, June calls Finn, hoping with everything in her he had not faded away quite yet, only to be met on the phone with another voice, telling her Finn was gone. From there, she doesn’t really know how to feel. Of course, she grieves the loss of the person she felt closest too, but when a mysterious stranger appears at Finn’s funeral, she realizes she may not have known her beloved uncle as well as he knew her.
From here, June begins a tumultuous life of sneaking and secrets. The stranger appears to her at her home, posing as a mail carrier to give her a package, the Russian teapot that belonged to Finn, a beautiful relic of their time together, and a note from Toby, the stranger. Reluctantly, June begins to spend time with Toby, sneaking away from her home, her accountant parents in the midst of tax season and Greta, the star of the school’s production of South Pacific, are rarely there to catch her leaving, and even then, this is the 80s. June meets Toby a few times, Greta’s words from the funeral ringing in her head, whispering that Toby murdered Finn. June is careful with herself, yet slowly, she comes to understand that Toby is not a murderer. That’s not how it works. She sees Finn shining through Toby, and learns her mother forced Finn to keep Toby a secret from the girls. He hid from June every time she came to visit, yet Toby tells her how he was there all the time, buying the black and white cookies she loved so much, and fixing the antique music boxes June received as a gift from Finn.
They trade Finn stories, showing one another the parts of him that were uniquely shown to each. June and Toby slowly build a relationship, finding Finn within one another and coming to love one another for who there are, not just for the one they love they see inside.
Meanwhile, June worries for her sister, who has begun drinking to the point of blackout and throwing her opportunities away, buckling under the pressure of her parents and peers. Through her secrecy, June pushes her family away until everything comes crashing down all at once, culminating in the discovery of June and Toby’s relationship.
I don’t want to summarize the story completely, as there are many discoveries revealed along the way that as a reader, had my emotions in a fit. Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a story about grief, love, and discovery in every relationship June has: her mother, her father, Greta, Toby, Finn, and even herself. She comes to love each person in a new way and by the end of the book, she has forged new relationships with everyone in her life. Through learning Toby’s side of the story, she resents her mother for forcing Finn to choose between given and chosen family. However, she learns more of her mother’s early relationship with Finn and comes to appreciate how abandoned her mother felt when Finn left to travel the world, cultivating the artistry they were supposed to share.
The relationship that caused me the most inner turmoil was between the sister, June and Greta. When we find them, Greta often bullies June, pretending to dislike her own sister and lashing out with words and actions meant to hurt. Of course, June is responsible for hurling her own pain right back at Greta. This relationship hurt me, as my sister and I are so close, I couldn’t imagine the pain of drifting away from your very own built-in bff. Greta reveals she was jealous of the relationship Finn and June had as the sisters were close until June spent all the time she could with Finn, not Greta. She resents the childhood June still has, as Greta skipped a grade and was expected to go to college the following fall, despite being only sixteen. She wishes she could be more like June, and June reveals she wishes she could be more like Greta. At the end of their sweet reveal, the sisters both feel healed, and understand they are on each other’s side, for once and for all, something that made me super mushy inside. Greta’s cries for help, purposely messing up the show, day-drinking excessively, and visiting the finished painting of the two girls in a bank lock-box are noticed only by June, who answers the calls as best she can.
The book finds it’s wrap with Toby growing more feebly by the day. June knew this was coming and prepares herself to lose the only person she’s found solace in since the passing of Finn. She understands that Finn and Toby became her first and second loves, and that while nothing can replace those bonds, it’s okay to move forward after death and build new relationships. She also learns that AIDS is not something she should feel disgusted by. In the first chapter, she does not even want to touch Finn in fear of contracting the disease herself, but Toby teachers her that, on one hand, AIDS is contracted in a few, very specific ways, but that it’s also not something that is shameful. It is something that happened to Finn and Toby, and countless others during this time. We the audience leave June ready to step into the world without Finn and Toby, with Greta back by her side, her mother close behind, and her father with her as well. She feels maybe one day she’ll grow up, stop daydreaming about medieval times as much, maybe even wear jeans, not a skirt every day, which is okay with her. We all grow and change, and sometimes that’s good.
June as a narrator is realistic, doubting herself and her feelings, retelling events in chunks and presenting her own story in a choppy way. Her fictional mind works just like a real person’s would, making her relatable and easy to visualize.
Tell the Wolves I’m Home is equal parts heartbreaking and heart lifting as a young girl navigates her life in the face of love and loss, in a very pure and real sense, and made me tear up quite a few times. In all, a triumph for author Carol Riftka Brunt.
If you’d like to let me know your own thoughts and feelings about Tell the Wolves I’m Home, get in contact with me on Twitter @abbikxsu and read next month’s book along with me! Mariana by Monica Dickens can be found here.
ABBI MANCINI | Home-Grown Orange and Mint Tea | KXSU Arts Reporter