52 pages • 1 hour read
James Patterson, Mike LupicaThe House of Wolves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Corruption and Prejudice in Professional Sports
Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain references to murder, violence, suicide, racism, sexism, and addiction.
The NFL plays an important role in the action of The House of Wolves. In the novel’s depiction of the NFL, the organization is rife with corruption and prejudice. The central focus of the plot is John Gallo’s attempts to secure an NFL franchise on behalf of Michael Barr. Barr believes that owning the San Francisco Wolves would allow him to “control the city in a way that no private citizen ever has in all the city’s history” (337); in his opinion, ownership of an NFL team gives an individual significant power. The fact that Barr is “one of the most powerful and ruthless private arms dealers in the world” compromises the ethical standing of the NFL and indicates that the individuals running it are not immune to violence or illegal activity (335). Similarly, NFL Commissioner Abrams’s behavior shows that corruption is a part of the novel’s depiction of the NFL organization. For instance, Danny Wolf is shocked to find that Commissioner Abrams is “as deferential” in his conversations with John Gallo “as if Gallo were the commissioner” (76). The fact that Abrams is deferential to Gallo—who is a private citizen connected to the mob—proves that the commissioner is willing to submit to the will of powerful, corrupt citizens, rather than upholding the rules of the NFL. In the world of the novel, the behavior of NFL owners and executives indicates that corruption is a significant problem in professional sports.
In addition to corruption, the novel also shows that prejudice is a serious problem within the NFL. Protagonist Jenny Wolf faces serious discrimination for being a woman when she tries to maintain ownership of the Wolves, and the novel shows that this misogyny exists throughout the NFL and sports media. In Jenny’s first meeting with Commissioner Abrams, he condescendingly refers to Jenny as “Honey.” When she questions this, he tells her not to “start with that MeToo shit” (74), connecting her complaint to the popular social movement intended to highlight the pervasive nature of misogyny in the US. The fact that Jenny can’t stand up for herself without being shut down as a social activist highlights the prejudice endemic to professional sports. Later, Jenny’s own brother publishes half-naked pictures of Jenny “smiling and trying to look sexy” in order to shame her into giving up her ownership share (90). These efforts to diminish Jenny’s agency and embarrass her publicly highlight the misogyny and prejudice in the novel’s depiction of professional sports.
The Public’s Distrust of Mainstream Media
Popular distrust of the mainstream media in the US is an important theme in The House of Wolves. Jenny Wolf’s efforts to maintain control of the Wolves is frequently hampered by her brother Jack’s journalistic malpractice at the San Francisco Tribune and, later, on Wolf.com. When the novel begins, Jack Wolf is the publisher of the Tribune, which is described as the lone “conservative voice in the otherwise liberal city” of San Francisco (15). Despite the paper’s conservative bent, Jack Wolf feels that, under his father’s reign, the paper wasn’t “loud enough. Or angry enough. Or nearly down and dirty enough” (15). As a result, Jack begins publishing stories that he knows to be false, such as accusing his brother Thomas of providing the drugs that killed the Wolves star rookie DeLavarious Harmon. When confronted with evidence of his lies, Jack smugly replies, “who gives a shit?” (107). Later, Jack arranges for a former Wolves employee, Donna Kilgore, to be “paid for accusing [Coach] Ryan Morrissey” of sexual misconduct (160). Jack personally coaches Kilgore on “what she was supposed to say, and what her best friend, a woman named Barb Rubio, was supposed to say to back up Donna’s account” (160). The novel uses Jack’s willingness to publish blatant lies in the Tribune as evidence of journalistic malpractice within mainstream media.
The novel also shows that this kind of immoral behavior in journalism leads to public distrust of the mainstream media. Jenny feels as if she can trust the reporters at the Tribune “about as far as [she] could throw the buffet table” since the lies that the paper publishes have eroded her faith in its journalism (20). When she fires Jack from his position at the Tribune, he founds a new independent website, Wolf.com. Jack explicitly identifies his audience as conservative readers who reject mainstream media sources like the Tribune and The New York Times. He explains that “at Wolf.com, we prefer to let the readers, many, many of whom don’t read the Times, decide” what is true and false (188). The novel also shows that social media is an important news source for the public. Crisis management consultant Bobby Erlich argues that it is “way more powerful than” the Supreme Court in swaying public opinion about controversies like Jenny’s takeover of the Wolves (198). The novel shows that the unethical behavior of journalists at mainstream sources like the Tribune leads the public to seek out alternative sources like Wolf.com or social media.
Cycles of Violence in Families
Although the Wolf family patriarch dies in the opening chapter of The House of Wolves, the long-term impacts of his actions are visible throughout the novel, highlighting the potential for cycles of violence to exist within families. The novel makes it clear Joe reigned over the Wolf family through fear and threats: Jenny describes her family dinners as “boxing without blood” (31), emphasizing the undercurrent of violence in their relationships, while her brother Danny feels that their family table “should have been covered by a steel cage” (144). These repeated references to fighting and brutality at the dinner table—which is the heart of traditional family life—shows that Joe Wolf was a ruthless patriarch who brought violence into his home. Jenny inherits her aggressive nature from her father, calling her “tough guy” attitude an “inherited trait” (12). As a child, she observed her father’s preference for violence, and later, as an adult, Jenny feels like she “couldn’t keep [herself] from looking for a good fight” (22). Ultimately, the violence Jenny experiences as a child has a negative impact on her adult relationships. As she explains to Detective Ben Cantor: “I’ve become so conditioned to acting like a tough guy that I didn’t know when to turn it off” (367). Although Jenny initially tries to shake off the tough guy identity she inherited from her father, by the end of the novel, she is repeating his family motto: “Kill or be killed” (394). Jenny’s example suggests that exposing children to violence can lead to dangerous cycles in which children repeat their parents’ mistakes.
While Jenny primarily inherits her father’s toughness, her brothers Jack and Danny inherit his cruelty. After the youngest son Thomas’s death, the novel reveals that, as a teenager, the Thomas “fantasized about throwing his father off the Golden Gate Bridge” (238). The novel suggests that Thomas experienced physical abuse at his father’s hands and that he fantasized about violence in retaliation. The oldest son, Jack, similarly responded to his father’s violence with violence of his own. As a teenager, Jack finally “decided he’d had enough and proceeded to give his father so much of a beating that Elise Wolf finally called the police because she was afraid Jack might beat Joe Wolf to death” (317). Both Jack and the middle brother Danny are more than willing to repeat their father’s ruthless manner in business—they threaten Jenny and other Wolves’ employees when they don’t get their way. The Wolf children show that cycles of violence can emerge within families in which children repeat the behaviors of their parents.
Related Titles
By these authors
