Tolog Review: Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka
reviewed by Alexandra Ehrhart

In her contemporary fiction novel, Tell the Wolves I’m Home, author Carol Rifka Brunt incorporates the theme of sacrificing for loved ones, while using many symbols, including a painting that represents unity. Tell the Wolves I’m Home follows fourteen year-old June Elbus as she deals with the loss of her uncle, her first love - Finn. After Finn loses his battle with AIDS, June struggles to cope with his death, but soon meets his partner, Toby, who helps her stay connected with Finn and lessen her grieving. Throughout the novel, June becomes closer with her family, especially her sister, and experiences a whole new aspect of Finn’s life that she has never seen before.

A major theme in Tell the Wolves I’m Home is that people sacrifice greatly for loved ones. First, Toby endangers himself to make June happy. Despite knowing that going into the rain will exacerbate his declining health due to AIDS, Toby rescues June’s sister, Greta, from a storm when June cannot. The police arrive with Greta and Toby, and June can only think, “I could see him so clearly, trying to do right by me, by Finn, his eyes squinting as he stumbled out of the woods, shocked by the headlights aimed right at him,” (Brunt 308). Toby knows he will die quicker by going into the storm, but because he loves June, risks his health to bring Greta home and make June happy. Brunt shows sacrifice again when Greta takes the blame for the poor situation June gets herself into. When June and Greta are questioned about Toby, Greta immediately creates a story that could get herself arrested. June cannot believe, “...that person who was my sister. At the way she could invent a whole story on the spot,” (310). Until this point, Greta has not been sisterly to June, so when Greta steps up and takes the blame, June appreciates such a sacrifice. Lastly, a huge sacrifice made is Toby’s sacrifice for Finn. For years, Finn and Toby’s relationship remained private because Greta and June’s mother, Danni, did not want them to know about Toby. Accordingly, Toby remained in the cellar every time the girls visited, so that Danni would not be mad at Finn. After seeing the cellar, June cannot believe that Toby stayed there and thinks, “Finn hid his secret boyfriend in the basement?...I thought of all the times I’d been upstairs in the apartment, and now those memories were getting mixed up with the picture of Toby skulking around down there,” (177). Throughout her novel, Brunt illustrates the theme of sacrifice for loved ones.

Although there are many present symbols, Finn’s painting Tell the Wolves I’m Home, reunites the Elbus family, and represents unity. The portrait’s initial purpose is to reconnect June and Greta. When June asks about the portrait, Toby replies, “He had this idea that if he painted you two together like that, then you’d always be connected,” (205). After Finn dies, Toby adds buttons to June’s sweater, June adds gold streaks in her and Gretta’s hair, and Greta adds red to her lips. “We could see the way it made us look like the closest of sisters. Girls made of exactly the same stuff,” (322). Through their alterations, Greta and June create a new sisterly connection. Lastly, Danni adds to the painting, and when the restoration expert does not notice it, June thinks, “She was so good that even an art expert couldn’t tell her painting apart from Finn’s. She’d be a part of that portrait forever,” (354). The characters who contribute to Finn’s portrait after he passes become connected in Finn’s and each other’s lives, making the portrait a symbol for unity.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a story about finding yourself and people who make you happy. This novel is full of emotions and adventures that will keep the reader interested. I enjoyed this book because it shows different types of love, and how everyone loves differently. I would definitely recommend this book to any reader.