William Lychack – ”Stolpestad”
The novel "Stolpestad" is written in 2008 by the American writer William Lychack. Waking up to a daily routine is something most people and families can recognize. However, this changed when Stolpestad as policeman is called in to help an injured dog by shooting it. One night is the boy who owned the dog with his father on Stolpestad front door, the dog survived, so they had to call in a veterinarian to euthanize it.
This novel "Stolpestad" is told through a second-person narrative, present tense, which make it feels like Stolpestad tells his own story. This narrative is a special and unusual narrative technique in fiction novels. The main character is Stolpestad, which is called "you" in the text. This makes the reader becomes a fly on the wall that passively follows his life through the episode with the dog that stands out from his normal daily routine as a police officer.
Because there is no omniscient author is the reader not in contract with Stolpestads feelings and do not know so much about him.
Stolpestad live in a house with his wife and two small boys. He goes through the same daily routine every single day, which he seems to be tired of. As said before the reader has no contract with his feelings. But since he every day after work choose to go to the bar instead of going home to his family, are there maybe some problems in his relationship to his wife, Sheila, that the reader does not know about. When he does not come home after work, the wife knows that he is at the bar and drink but she do not do anything about it. It does not affects him when he kills the dogs, which may have something to do with that he already seems tired of life.
Since there is no omniscient author, has the reader no knowledge of where the novel takes place.
As said before, there are not told so much about which country or city the story takes place. But the story perhaps takes place in the United States....