Literature / Wolfsong

Wolfsong is the first book in TJ Klune's Green Creek series and follows the story of Oxnard Matheson as he befriends the mysterious Bennett family who have just returned to town after an extended absence, and deals with the dangers that follow them.

Oxnard Matheson is different.

Ox knows this because his father told him so when Ox was twelve, on the night he left their home forever. He knows because the kids at his school call him names and push him around, even though he's bigger than all of them. The only people in Ox's life who care about him as he is are his mother, his father's old coworkers, and their boss, Gordo. Ox spends his early adolescence going to school, working under the table at Gordo's auto-shop, and trying not to hear the echo of his father's parting words, people aren't going to understand you. You’re gonna get shit for most of your life.

Things change when the wealthy and mysterious Bennett family move back into their ancestral home down the road, and ten-year-old Joe Bennett takes a sudden and powerful interest in Ox.

The Bennett family have some very obvious peculiarities that Ox takes in stride, like their habit of calling themselves a pack, or the mysterious “family business” they attend to every full moon, or the fact that every so often, Ox sees their eyes flash to different colors, and their teeth become slightly pointed, or they growl when irritated—

And thus Oxnard is introduced into a world full of werewolves, witches, and monsters. He learns the ins and outs of what it means to be part of a pack, discovering the traumas of the Bennett's past, and how, now that he has them, he would do anything to keep them all safe.

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The book contains examples of the following tropes:

• Alpha and Beta Wolves: Thomas Bennett is the leader and Alpha of the pack. Alpha-ness is presented at first to be an inherited supernatural trait, but that can also be cut out of a werewolf and taken by another if they eat it. Omegas are mentioned as being werewolves that have no pack and may go entirely feral if they have no tether. Betas are every other normal pack member.
• Animated Tattoo: Gordo's tattoos move around, reflecting the use of his power and his moods.
• Badass Normal: After years of training with the wolves and kitted out with some deadly weaponry, Ox and the other humans associated with the Bennett pack become more than capable of defending themselves even against werewolves.
• The Beautiful Elite: The Bennett pack are the closest thing the werewolf community has to a royal family, and every one of them is described as being exceptionally good-looking. This is not a trait innate to werewolves, as others from outside the clan vary in terms of physical attractiveness.
• Beyond the Impossible: In the three-year absence Joe, his brothers and Gordo take from Green Creek to hunt for Collins, Ox somehow naturally develops into an Alpha and takes over as such for the remaining members of the Bennett pack, despite being completely human, and is able to recruit other humans into the pack as well. Neither of these things have happened before in recorded werewolf history, and there is no concrete explanation given for how he became this way, especially by accident.
• Big Bad: Richard Collins is a psychopathic murderer who used to be Thomas Bennett's Number Two. In the past, when much of the Bennett pack was wiped out by human hunters, including Richard's parents, he blamed Thomas for his inaction. He sought both revenge on Thomas and a way to become an Alpha wolf in his own right. His methods include torturing children, murdering anyone he comes across, and his main plan is to devour an Alpha to gain their power.
• Bi-Wildered: Ox takes a while to come to terms with himself once he finds himself starting to check out guys when he'd previously only been attracted to women. Luckily, everyone in his life is very accepting to the point of not caring about his preferences. Joe's older brother even remarks that it will "make things easier" with Joe down the line; Ox doesn't know what he is talking about, partially because he is Oblivious to Love and partially because at that point Joe is twelve.
• Cannibalism Superpower: There are apparently a few different ways to become an Alpha, but the easiest way for an unscrupulous werewolf to do it would be to eat the essence of it out of an already-existing one. It's not specified which organ contains the Alpha quality, but Ox notes someone piercing through the stomach in order to get at it.
• Canis Major: Alpha werewolves are larger than the rest of their pack mates in their wolf form. When Joe grows up, his wolf is described as being eye-level with a 6'3 (1.91 m) human.
• Cool Uncle: Mark is uncle to the Bennett kids and is more relaxed than his brother, letting the kids goof around and taking them to the local diner. He's also the first of the Bennett family to encounter Ox and treat him kindly. At one point, the Bennett boys feel comfortable enough around him to start talking about girls and sex:
  Carter: I am so going to hit that this year.
  Mark: Ah, the joys of young love. Joe, don’t put french fries up your nose.
  Kelly: Hit that? Dude. Gross.
  Carter: Oh, I’m sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities. I meant make love to.
  Mark: [Ox], please don’t tell Thomas or Elizabeth anything about this. I’m a good uncle, I swear.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: In general, Thomas warns Ox that when a werewolf makes a single person their tether (as opposed to multiple people, or some kind of greater ideal), they are likely to become possessive and over-protective towards that person. Specifically, Joe does not take kindly to Ox having romantic relationships, even as a child.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Ox learns that the reason the Bennetts returned to Green Creek was because Joe was kidnapped by Richard Collins and tortured for several weeks, during which time Richard made sure to call the Bennett family and let them listen to Joe screaming. After Joe was rescued, Thomas temporarily abdicated his throne to take his family back home and start to heal. For over a year, Joe didn't speak to anyone— until he met Ox.
• Disappeared Dad: Ox's and Gordo's fathers both abandoned them when they were children. Ox's father because he was an abusive deadbeat dad who didn't want the burden of a family, and Gordo's because he was a witch who'd gone mad with grief at the loss of his tether and went off to become a psychotic murderer.
• Devoted to You: Joe became devoted to Ox immediately after meeting him for the first time, saying that he smelled like "candy canes and pine cones and epic and awesome." After, Joe gives Ox a beautiful carving of a wolf, which Ox accepts, unknowing that it was essentially a proposal.
• Dumb Struck: After his traumatic ordeal as a child, Joe was incapable of speaking to anyone for over a year. This changed when he met Ox, and the fact that Ox got him to speak again is why the Bennett's accept Ox so readily into the family.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: A story about a normal human with low self-esteem suddenly being brought into a wealthy supernatural family due to a member of that family having an inexplicable interest in them. It features werewolves that essentially imprint on the person they're romantically interested in. When Ox's human friends discover the situation, they specifically call Ox out for living in a shitty Twilight fanfiction.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Wolfsong mentions a few minor elements that contradict information in later books. Some of it can be put down to Ox being an unreliable narrator who isn't given full details (such as the backstory Robbie gives in Wolfsong being far less traumatic than the one revealed in Heartsong). However, some things are harder to explain away, such as a witch character in the first book casually stating he turned down the werewolf bite when offered, whereas an important plot point in the later books is that witches cannot become werewolves as the bite would typically kill them, and a witch who does work around it is seen as a major aberration.
• Empowered Badass Normal: In the final battle, Richard Collins guts Ox with his claws, claiming his Alpha powers and ensuring his death. After Joe deals with Collins, he bites Ox, transforming him into a werewolf and saving his life in the process.
• Everyone Can See It: The entire Bennett family apparently knew Joe was in love with Ox since they were children, and had assumed that them ending up together was a foregone conclusion. Ox is the last person to know any of it, and the family— Thomas and Elizabeth in particular— are extremely pleased when Ox discovers he has feelings for Joe. When Joe goes to Ox's house to ask Ox's mother's permission to court him, the entire Bennett family is eavesdropping by the window and cheering them on.
• Family of Choice: Ox considers the Bennett family to be this to him and his mother. He also explicitly refers to the guys at the auto-shop as his family, and during a panic attack refers internally to Gordo as his "father-brother-friend." Gordo was the one looking out for Ox and his mom after Ox's father left, and he, Chris, Tanner, and Rico were the first people outside of Ox's mother to accept Ox as he is. Later, When Ox forms his own pack, he includes the humans from the auto-shop as well as Jessie and Robbie, who all see each other as family by that point. The Bennetts, for their part, also consider Ox and his mother as part of their pack.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Robbie Fontaine starts off as an outsider to the Bennett pack who was sent to be a political liaison between them and the current steward to the throne— essentially as a spy. Jessie starts off as Ox's first girlfriend and Romantic False Lead before she goes off to college. Chris, Tanner, and Rico were Ox's friends at the auto-shop where he worked, but knew nothing of the supernatural. After several werewolf attacks, life-threatening situations, and rescues, Robbie shifts his loyalty from his employers to Ox, all of them are incredibly close friends, and join Ox's new Green Creek pack.
• Freudian Excuse: Decades past, most of the Bennett pack was wiped out by Hunters, including Thomas's father Abel (the former pack Alpha) and every member of Richard Collins's family. He blames the Bennetts for allowing this to happen (despite the losses they also suffered), and does terrible things to exact his revenge upon them.
• Gentle Giant: Ox is huge and imposing even as a young teenager, outstripping most of the werewolf men who are genetically predisposed to being tall and muscular. He is soft-spoken and caring, but people shy away from him in school because his size is so intimidating.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Robert Livingstone, a powerful witch and Gordo's father who used to be part of the Bennett pack decades ago before losing control and being imprisoned, somehow managed to break out and then free Richard Collins. Livingstone doesn't appear in the flesh during the book, but he is responsible for all the damage done by Collins, and the threat he poses continues into the later novels of the series.
• Healing Factor: Werewolves have incredibly fast healing abilities even in human form, recovering from broken bones or serious wounds in minutes. Joe saves Ox's life at the end by turning him into a wolf so he can heal from what would have been a lethal injury.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Ox's mother Maggie, held hostage by Richard Collins to force Ox's compliance, willingly attacks her captors and ensures her own death to buy Ox time to summon the rest of the pack to his aid.
• High-School Sweethearts: Thomas and Elizabeth Bennett have been together since they were teenagers, and continue to be Happily Married for decades. In general, it's quite common for werewolves to pair off young, or to at least decide on who they believe to be their mate at a young age, as none of the family makes too much of a fuss when Joe declares, at the ripe old age of 10, that Ox is the man for him.
• I Have Your Wife: Before the Bennetts met Ox, Joe was kidnapped by Richard Collins and tortured solely for the purpose of hurting his father. Later, Richard tries this with Ox by holding his mother hostage, and again at the end of the novel by holding human townsfolk Ox knew as hostages.
• Insistent Terminology: Gordo is adamant that he is a witch, not a wizard.
• I Will Wait for You: The main conflict of the last fourth of the novel is that the Bennett pack splits up for a long-term separation. Much longer than any of them had anticipated, and Ox must take care of things until the others return. The words are spoken verbatim when, near the end of the novel, Joe tells Ox he'll wait for him when he thinks Ox is just leaving to help a friend with a flat tire, when in reality Ox is going to face Richard alone and doesn't expect to survive.
• The Jailbait Wait: Ox suddenly develops romantic feelings for Joe when the latter is 17 and the former is 23. Joe, having been deeply in love with Ox for some time, is keen to begin a full-blown sexual relationship right away, but Ox refuses to do anything more than hand-holding until Joe is 18. Circumstance forces them to wait several years longer before they actually have sex.
• Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: Joe lives right down at the end of the road that Ox lives on and would frequently wait for him at the turn-off, so they could walk home together.
• Mage Species: Witch is a term for someone who uses magic, regardless of their gender. Werewolf packs will try to adopt a witch into their fold, as the presence of a witch seems to both amplify whatever power werewolves posses and also serve as another tether for the pack to latch onto. As well as having the practical benefits of being able to do useful magic around the place. In the first 1/4th of the book, it's revealed that Gordo is a witch who had once belonged to the Bennett pack as a child, only to reject them later.
• Mindlink Mates: In addition to the general Psychic Link shared by members of any wolf pack, the bond between two mates is stronger and distinct from the rest of the pack, feeding into the deeper emotional connections.
• Morality Chain: Of the magically-enforced kind. Natural-born magical beings, such as werewolves or witches, require a "tether" to their humanity in order to retain control of their sanity and baser urges. The tether is usually close friends or family members, or can be a strong emotional connection (home, love, revenge, etc.), but there must be something that connects them to their human identity. Ox serves as a tether to both Joe and Gordo.
• No Sense of Personal Space: The Bennett family is very touchy-feely, with all of them, adults and children alike, constantly finding reasons to touch Ox. At first, Ox thinks this is just the way they are, but then he notices that they don't act the same way when he brings over a girl he likes to meet them. Ox learns later it's a wolf thing; they consider him to be theirs, so they get their scent on him. The first time thy are invited into Ox's home, they immediately go around touching everything they can.
• Oblivious to Love: Ox knows that he and Joe are best friends, and that the whole Bennett family care about him, but he had no idea that Joe was interested in him romantically until he's in his twenties.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The Bennett family change into wolves around the full moon, but can change at other times as well. They can also attempt to resist changing on the full moon, though it is difficult to do. Alpha and Beta wolves require a "tether" to hold onto their humanity, usually a close friend or loved one, and wolves without tethers become Omegas, little more than crazed beasts. The wolves retain an empathic connection with all the members of their pack (whether they be fellow wolf, witch or human), and can be soothed, strengthened or even outright controlled by the pack Alpha, a status that can be transferred to another Beta wolf by various means that usually result in the original Alpha's death.
• Personal Horror: Joe suffers from his traumatic abuse at the hands of Richard Collins, and is shown to still be struggling with it years later as an adult.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: The werewolves aren't nudists, but are comfortable with spending extended periods of time naked after reverting to human form. Ox adjusts to this fairly quickly, but Chris, Tanner and Rico spend quite a lot of time asking everyone to cover themselves up as they aren't accustomed to being surrounded by a lot of naked people who are also related to each other.
• Precocious Crush: It's clear to the audience and the Bennett family (though not to Ox) that ten-year-old Joe is head over heels in love with sixteen-year-old Ox. A crush that only gets stronger as the two grow up together.
• Psychic Link: All members of a wolf pack share a link with each other, though it's only capable of communicating emotions and basic impressions of words, not entire conversations.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the last chunk of the book, over half the remaining Bennetts go after Richard to make him pay for murdering both Thomas and Ox's mother. Deconstructed in that the second half of the book details myriad ways that it devastates the people left behind and that Joe near totally destroys himself (to the point that he more or less loses the ability to speak again) and his relationship with Ox only to come home totally empty handed.
• Romantic False Lead: Both Ox and Joe get one. Oxnard dates Chris's sister, Jessie, which greatly upsets Joe for reasons Ox cannot understand, and Joe briefly goes out with a boy named Frankie.
• Savage Wolves: Feral werewolves are insane murder machines that may or may not be stuck in the wolfman part of their transformation.
• Scars Are Forever: Though werewolves can heal from any injury, the bite mark left by one's mate never goes away.
• He Is All Grown Up: When Joe is seventeen, Ox notices for the first time how attractive he's become… and then immediately has a panic attack because Joe is his best friend and six years his junior.
• Silence of Sadness:
  • The Bennetts left behind after Thomas's death and Joe, Carter, Kelly, and Gordo's departure fall into quiet mourning. Mark grows quieter and quieter as time passes, and Elizabeth spends months in her wolf form, not wanting to face her grief with the full gamut of human emotions.
  • After Joe and the others return after three years away, it's said that Joe spent much of the final year barely speaking until he returns, when his first words are to Ox. It's compared to the above example of him having been Dumb Struck, but the circumstances are different and he does still communicate with Gordo and his brothers through their psychic pack bonds.
• Silver Bullet: All silver is harmful to werewolves, burning them on contact. It's used in a variety of weapons by the humans against enemy wolves, including knives and a crowbar, and they are all highly proficient at using guns which fire actual silver bullets.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Joe makes a half-hearted attempt to date another boy as a teenager, but he'd had his heart set on being with Ox since he was only ten.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Gordo broke off contact with the wolves a long time before the book starts, and very reluctantly allows himself to be drawn back into their world because of Ox, but it's years before he shows the Bennett pack anything other than contempt and aggression.
• This Explains So Much: When Rico, Chris, and Tanner find out that their boss and childhood friend, Gordo is a witch, they start listing off things that probably should have tipped them off earlier.
  Chris: That actually explains a lot. Because of all his weirdness.
  Tanner: Like how his tattoos always seemed to be in different places.
  Rico: Or how when we all moved here, he always went around our houses, rubbing the walls and muttering things.
  Chris: Or how he didn’t think it was funny when I wanted to put up witch Halloween decorations at the shop.
  Tanner: Or how he had daddy issues and never explained why. I always thought his dad was just a jerk. I didn’t know he was an evil jerk.
  Rico: There were really a lot of clues. I’m slightly disappointed in us.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Asked almost verbatim by a furious Ox to Joe after Joe splits up the Bennett pack to hunt down Richard, for over three years, and then doesn't even catch him, wasting three years of their lives together.
• Would Hurt a Child: Richard Collins brutally tortured Joseph Bennett when he was a young child in order to make his family suffer. When Richard returns to Green Creek, he threatens the life of another child in order to get Ox out in the open.

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