Nob Caldar, the wolf in Kathleen Sully’s Dear Wolf, could be the hero of a 1950s R&B song — the Dominoes’s “Sixty Minute Man” or anything by Bo Diddley (“A young girl’s wish and an old woman’s dream”). He’s the local lovin’ man, who manages to bed at least a dozen different women in the course of the novel’s 2-3 week span.
It ain’t because of his good looks. He’s hairy, pot-bellied, hovering around forty, rarely wearing clean clothes, and never with more than a pound or two to his name. He lives out beyond the town in a caravan so filthy that even his most ardent lover wouldn’t come near it. He’s not the slightest bit interested in settling down (“Women, they’re all the same: they want to own you lock, stock and barrel”). And he has to send off postal orders each week to support the three children he’s had by different women.
Nob — yep, it’s that obvious — is the satyr as comic relief. Half the time he gets a woman in bed, he ends up scurrying out the window and scrambling to find his pants in the dark. He gets chased by dog, man, and angry mob. He’s sent running out of the village, half-naked and wearing a chastity belt the blacksmith has constructed to keep his amorous inclinations in check. Yet somehow he keeps finding a soft spot in the next woman’s heart.
Dear Wolf is by far the least substantial of Kathleen Sully’s novels, a bit of farce that takes about an hour and a half to read and sticks with you about as long after. Not one worth looking for.
Thanks, Mark. I still wouldn’t put this at the top of a Sully list, though. Six months and sixteen books later, and she’s still a bit of a mystery. I will keep on her trail.
Negative notices frequently make me want to read a book, and this is no exception! Kudos on your entire Kathleen Sully series.