Kornwolf

Tristan Egolf's new novel is a book about the return of an old curse -- the Kornwolf, a ferocious werewolf whose nocturnal rampaging becomes increasingly impossible to ignore. Kornwolf takes the reader for a good old-fashioned romp in the stubble -- a journey through the slums and honky tundra of rural Pennsylvania, where nothing quite passes for good or bad, sublime or dismal, discrete or brash. And then the monotony breaks. Something -- a freak of creation -- is running amok in the fields. To solve the mystery, three generations of prodigal sons -- a writer and hometown boy who swore he'd never come back to Penn's Woods; a middle-aged former pugilist who runs a decrepit boxing gym; and a misfit, mute, beaten-down Amish boy -- are brought together by the light of a blue moon, in a town called Blue Ball. On one level this is a masterfully orchestrated, hilarious, and compelling take on the classic horror yarn, on another, Kornwolf is a social satire of suburban sprawl, closed minds, and all manners and varieties of self-satisfaction -- Amish, civilian, or... other -- in the best tradition of Tom Robbins and George Saunders.