Who is Brendan Wolf? It all depends on who you ask.
To the staff of a Minneapolis nursing home, he's the devoted partner of a much older man who's recently suffered a debilitating stroke.
To the women of a conservative, Christian pro–life organization, he's the tireless volunteer grieving over the recent loss of his wife and their unborn child.
To one gay activist, he's the unaffectedly charming, yet directionless and unemployed man that he's fallen hopelessly in love with.
To his brother and his brother's wife, he's the lynchpin of a scam that will net them enough money to start their lives over somewhere new.
To the general public, he's an armed and dangerous fugitive.
All of these people—and yet none of them—Brendan Wolf is an ambivalent lover, reluctant conspirator, counterfeit Christian, and, most of all, an unemployed daydreamer obsessed with a dead man.
From Brian Malloy the author of the award–winning The Year of Ice, this is a tour–de–force—a compelling, hilarious, heart–breaking novel about one utterly typical, and completely original, figure: Brendan Wolf.
Malloy, Brian. “Brendan Wolf”. St, Martin’s 2008.
Who is Brendan Wolf?
Amos Lassen
What Brian Malloy tells about Brendan Wolf is that he is gay and 35 years old and grew up in an emotionally disturbed home. He loved to read about people who had adventures and he is not happy at the little progress he has made in life. He wants adventure so when his brother, Ian, and his wife offer him a chance to become involved in a plot to steal money which had been donated to a right-wing Christian lobbying organization, he jumps at the chance. Brendan has not been able to support himself. He had dropped out of college and so now he is ready for the plan to have money. They are going to steal the money from a pro-life group and Brendan, himself, infiltrates the pro-lifers by lying.
Brendan lives with an older guy named Marv and then he meets his boyfriend, Sean but Brendan realizes that the only family he will ever have is with his brother and sister-in-law.
Malloy turns Brendan into a person that the reader begins to care about and I am not exactly sure why. He is a guy who wants a second chance at life and as we read we learn that his life and his name are aliases. He is lost and has no real identity other than the one he uses at any given moment.
Here is a book about a bunch of losers and the story is both funny and depressing. Nothing good happens to any of the characters. Brendan Wolf elicits strong feelings in the reader and the contemporary story line gives it relevance. The writing is good but I hate to admit that I found myself identifying with an unsympathetic and self-destructive character.
