David Wroblewski is the summer's great hope for aspiring writers everywhere. His first novel -- which took him nearly 15 years to complete -- is an unqualified hit, drawing raves across the literary and pop-fiction spectrums.

"The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" is also a boost for the future of reading for pleasure. A whopping tome at 568 pages, the book is No. 4 on the New York Times bestseller list this week, and No. 1 or 2 in other cities, including San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. In the Twin Cities, the book is No. 2 on the local bestseller list (based on sales at select area bookstores).

Set in rural Wisconsin in the 1970s, the novel is a retelling of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," with a mute boy, Edgar Sawtelle, in the role of the prince. His parents breed and train dogs, as did Wroblewski's during his own early years in Wisconsin. The Sawtelle dogs are so responsive to human commands that they fetch a high price, and soon a relative with evil on his mind comes calling.

A large measure of the book's success is no doubt Wroblewski's ability to not only capture the human/dog bond so perfectly, but his skill at entering the canine mind. All dog owners want to be privy to what their pets are thinking, and while we'll never really know, this book comes as close to telling us as possible.

We caught up with Wroblewski, a former computer-software writer who lives near Denver, near the end of his extended book tour.

Q Writing from a dog's point of view is tricky territory. How did you approach it?

A It was absolutely the most daunting part to write, but also in the end the easiest. I grew up around dogs. Watching them and being with them is one of the great pleasures of my life, so I found a pretty deep reservoir to draw on. A lot of writing about dogs is anthropomorphized and over-sentimentalized, and my writing is partly a reaction to that.

Q Have you ever seen that Gary Larson "The Far Side" cartoon showing a person yelling at a dog named Ginger for digging in the garbage, and all the dog hears is "Blah blah blah, Ginger! Blah blah"?

A Yes. On my bookshelf is the collected works. So many of them are about our absurd misconceptions of the animal world.

Q One of the main attractions of the book is the element of fantasy. Would you call it a kind of magical realism?

A I don't classify it that way because I see magical realism as partly cultural and I wasn't attempting it on that scale. But I get a lot of feedback from readers very interested in the ghosts in Henry's head. We're all haunted, by past deeds and people we've known, and grief.

Q Having a first novel attract enthusiastic praise from such a wide variety of sources is a heavy mantle to hoist. How are you dealing with it?

A Well, the truth is I've been making software for 30 years, and one of the lessons you learn early on is, after you've made something, to step back, be quiet, watch and listen. A part of me wants to sort of hide away and just listen for a while. If you're normal, you need some time to get your ego out of the way, to hear both the criticism and the praise and put the praise in perspective. A few months from now, when things are quiet again, I'll take all the responses and sit down and think about them. I'm a slow person. I think slowly, I work slowly and usually I'm very suspicious of my first reaction to anything.

What I most need to hear might not even be in yet. The other lesson to learn in any craft is to stay humble because the next time you sit down, if you're trying to get better, it gets harder and harder.

Q You say creating software is every bit as creative as writing fiction, but is it as rewarding?

A Absolutely, I love doing it. It's a blast. It's just a different kind of play. I also do black and white photography, another kind of play. The pleasure comes from learning how to work with that material, whatever it happens to be. A good day is when you get some good play in your hands and you're working it and the time just sort of goes by.

Q Edgar is a mute. I read you had some practice with that.

A I spent a week as a self-imposed mute because I had minor oral surgery, a couple of stitches in my tongue, and it was so awkward to talk that I stopped. It was very interesting. I spent more time noticing things and became a better observer.

Q Maybe also some practice in thinking like a dog, since they can't talk?

A I'm very interested in all the great science going on in the last 15 to 20 years in the area of understanding animal cognition. I've spent a lot of time working with linguists and cognitive psychologists, analyzing natural language. Language is a mixed blessing. It allows us to do all sorts of things, and also gets in the way. Dogs are highly communicative, but they don't have language, so that boundary is fuzzy and worth exploring. The disadvantage of language is that once you have it, you also have the ability to lie.

Q Dogs can't lie, but they can be manipulative.

A Yes, my dog, Lola, many times, if she doesn't want to do something, pretends to be extremely interested in something else.

Q You won't say what breed Lola is. Why not?

A It's been so much fun to hear readers describe to me what they think my dog must be. I don't want to interfere with their experience of the book by giving them a picture of Lola.

Q What's your pet peeve about people interacting with dogs?

A People who let their dogs just run wild and don't engage in training on some level.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046