Wolf Boy
by Evan Kuhlman
Shaye Areheart Books

Death may dwell at the heart of Evan Kuhlman's new novel, "Wolf Boy," but he graciously stands back to hover at a respectful distance while the book's other inhabitants struggle gamely to move on with their lives.

Wolf Boy follows the lives of the Harrelsons, a family lacerated by grief after the sudden death of their oldest son, Francis. Kuhlman focuses on the ensuing emotional destruction with laserlike intensity, following each tiny little shard of grief as it penetrates and shreds the lives of those who had lived with and loved Francis before his tragic demise.

This kind of focus could have easily led to a novel that bogged down into pounding, maudlin sentimentality, but in Kuhlman's deft hands the passing of Francis becomes both a wrecking ball and catalyst for his central characters: mother Helen, both incapacitated and liberated by grief; father Gene, increasingly alienated from his wife and family; daughter "Crispy," whose comic/tragic obsession with Marky Mark turns into a means of escape; and younger son Stephen, whose insatiable curiosity and artistic bent provide him with a vivid and sometimes effective way to wrestle with his grief.

The comic Stephen creates, "Wolf Boy," gives the novel both its title and emotional core. Nominally written by Stephen and illustrated by his friend Nicole, actual pages from Wolf Boy appear sporadically throughout the book.

Like the novel that surrounds it, Wolf Boy comes at its subject matter — the death of Francis (Wolf Brother, in the comic's alternate reality) — with a sly honesty. A conventional super hero story on the surface, the comic (illustrated by real life cartoonists Brendon and Brian Fraim) engages in legitimately moving metaphysical and emotional flights of adventure cloaked in the language and images of old-school comic books.

In clumsier hands, the interlacing of traditional and graphic novels could have felt like a gimmick, or, at best, a redundant distraction from the main body of the story. But Wolf Boy the comic may be the most enjoyable and gripping part of Wolf Boy the novel — this is no small feat, as the book maintains a calm, reflective distance from the chaos it depicts, rendering that rarest of literary birds: a story about death that neither uplifts in a chintzy attempt to keep its audience happy, nor relentlessly depresses its readers in a bloodyminded attempt to impress with the depth of its sorrow.

The onion-like layers of nuance and sometimes counterintuitive writing that comprise Wolf Boy came to Kuhlman, at least in part, the hard way — his own older brother, Eric, was killed in a car crash when he was a boy. But never does his book feel like a painful autobiography-through-fiction, or a wallow through unfinished business. With its intense, sometimes surprisingly funny examination of grief and healing comes an elegant detachment that renders the whole package a serendipitous delight.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)