THE MURDER STORY THAT sparked this novel is based on true events in the town of Morgan, Minnesota. I heard only the barest details—a boy with a shotgun tucked into his coat going to his teacher’s house and then killing the sheriff by shooting through the car door. In my original draft, I had not intended to write anything about it, but I woke up one morning hearing the voice of a father wondering over his son and what he has done. I had to set it down, and when I did, his voice took over this story. Jessamyn West once wrote, “Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.” While writing Little Wolves I intentionally avoided finding out any more details about the actual case. New to parenthood myself, I had to follow this father’s voice, and this novel is where he led me.
As I wrote, other stories came to me. A Lutheran pastor who had just finished serving a congregation out on the prairie told me about her church’s strict rules regarding the burial of the dead and her struggles with these customs. In the cemetery behind the church, suicides were not allowed to be buried with the saints and instead went into a separate corner. As far as I know, the congregation continues this practice to this day.
These stories form the skeleton, and they are both true, but all else is purely a work of the imagination.