Paul Yoon’s new novel, Etna (Scribner), begins with an act of separation. Etna, a German shepherd, is taken from the family that raised him and trained as a military working dog. After surviving a devastating war in an unnamed country, he sets out across a shattered landscape in search of home. What follows is both an odyssey and a study of post-traumatic stress, told through a consciousness shaped by scent, sound, instinct, attachment, and loss.
The premise places Yoon on perilous literary ground. A heroic dog can become sentimental shorthand, and an animal narrator can easily turn into a human voice wearing a fur coat. Yoon avoids those traps through spare prose and careful attention to the limits—and mysteries—of canine perception. Etna’s loyalty never functions as a reassuring moral lesson. It is also the quality that makes him useful to the machinery of war.
Yoon, who lives in Hudson and teaches at Williams College, is the author of six works of fiction, including Run Me to Earth and the Story Prize-winning collection The Hive and the Honey. Etna grew partly from his relationship with Oscar, the Lab mix he and his wife adopted as a puppy. In our conversation, Yoon spoke about imagining Oscar’s inner life, writing across the boundary between human and animal consciousness, the Korean War’s place in his family history, and why Etna’s journey home could never end with a simple return.
A warning before proceeding: Our conversation discusses major events in Etna and the ending of the book. Spoilers follow.
Brian K. Mahoney
I found the book devastating.
Paul Yoon
That means a lot to me, that you took the time to read it. Are you someone who has an animal in his life?
Brian K. Mahoney
Yes. I’ve had many dogs in my life.
Paul Yoon
Then you know.
Brian K. Mahoney
I do. Are dogs a big part of your life?
Paul Yoon
Originally, no. I have a dog who’s 12 now, whom my wife and I rescued when he was three months old. He’s been in our lives for almost 12 years, but he’s my first dog. I did not grow up with animals in my life, so it took a beat for me to adjust. It’s hard to explain. I had created a neat box that was my life, and then this totally wild beast of a puppy busted through that box. It took me a moment to get used to it, but it was almost like I was relearning how to live. Now I think it’s because of him that life feels more joyful, more full of love and surprises—and, in that way, more creative, too. He allowed me to be more creative as well.
Brian K. Mahoney
What kind of dog is he?
Paul Yoon
He’s a Lab mix. We’re not entirely sure what he’s a mix of, but we think mostly Lab. We’ve never done a DNA test or anything like that.
Brian K. Mahoney
The DNA doesn’t matter.
Paul Yoon
No, but he’s my best pal. We’re almost always together. He’s 12 now, so he’s getting a little older, and part of me is starting to imagine what life is going to be like without him. I think it was that heartbreak that started me on this journey of imagining a canine voice. My dog’s name is Oscar, and I often imagine what he might sound like if he were able to talk to me. The first few pages of the novel were actually just me imagining that he was talking to me.
Brian K. Mahoney
I don’t use the word “devastating” lightly. The book is devastating right from the start because Etna is with the family where he was born and raised, and then suddenly he’s yanked away.
Paul Yoon
Absolutely. He’s brought into circumstances that are beyond his understanding and his choice.
Brian K. Mahoney
The opening was interesting because these dogs enter our lives after that has happened. They’ve had this traumatic separation from everything they’ve ever known as home, and then they’re brought to their “forever home” with us. I imagine Oscar has had a wonderful life with you, just as all my dogs have had great lives with me, but the opening dramatizes something we never think about.
Paul Yoon
It’s something we don’t think about often, and I thought it would be interesting to enter that space and think deeply about Oscar’s life before we took him in. How much of it does he remember? How much, even if he doesn’t actively remember it, is coded into him? That became part of the book. Unlike Oscar, Etna keeps entering spaces that are out of his hands and beyond his control. I wanted to open with that first moment when things are taken out of his hands—or simply taken away from him.
Brian K. Mahoney
Oscar gives us a window into the idea of writing a novel with a dog protagonist, but Etna is also a novel about PTSD. Why the war setting?
Paul Yoon
War is a great part of my family history. My father’s side of the family was deeply affected by the Korean War in the 1950s. Growing up, I heard many stories about conflict, escaping certain areas, rebuilding, and creating a life again. Those are things I’ve been writing about for a few decades now.
In the past few years, it has also felt as though this world is at war. We are actively engaged in conflicts across the world, so that was very much on my mind. Early in the war in Ukraine, I read a New York Times article about an organization trying to return to the front lines to save as many animals as possible—dogs stuck in houses, cats, cows, horses—who had been abandoned by families fleeing the bombings. I remember thinking about the heroism of those people, and some part of me broke while reading it. I used that emotion to find my way into the story. It became a tipping point.
Brian K. Mahoney
What rules did you establish for what Etna could understand or communicate?
Paul Yoon
The first rule was that all animals would be able to talk to and communicate with one another. I knew that because this was a solo journey narrative, I was going to bring Etna into many places where he was alone. But I didn’t want him to be alone, so it was important that he be able to communicate with the other animals he encounters.
Another rule feels more speculative or fantastical: As the animals communicate, they’re able to gauge how long they have left to live by listening to one another’s hearts. I wanted them to be aware of their mortality and, in some ways, accepting of it, while still possessing the fortitude to endure and continue. That felt important to me. And there is one human in the book who can communicate with dogs. It was important to have that exception.
Brian K. Mahoney
Etna realizes that Soojin is dying of cancer and goes to tell her, but she already knows.
Paul Yoon
She already knows. And she’s the same woman who “recruits” him when he’s a puppy and takes him away. Even though she is responsible for taking him, there is a very strong bond between them. They are deeply connected. I wanted to emphasize that by allowing her to speak to him and him to speak to her.
Brian K. Mahoney
I was waiting for Soojin to return, and I was also waiting for Fuji to return. Fuji never does, which I thought was a brave choice.
Paul Yoon
Fuji is the ghost that haunts him. She’s the dog who vanished; she was his original pack. I imagined her in a parallel timeline, on her own journey while Etna is on his. It was important for me to leave it there. Whether, months or years after the book ends, they find each other, I don’t know. I don’t know if Fuji is alive. My hope is that she is still on her journey, the way Etna is, but whether they reunite, I do not know. The existence of that parallel track felt important to me.
Brian K. Mahoney
It felt very true to life. We’re haunted by everyone we’ve ever known, sometimes in a good way: the guys I went to high school with, my dead parents. People leave your life and you think you might run into them again, and then you never do.
Paul Yoon
That’s beautifully put, Brian. You’re absolutely right: It felt true to life. Etna crosses paths with beings he reunites with and others he’s unable to find again. That’s life.
Brian K. Mahoney
Writing a novel with a dog protagonist seems tricky because the dog can easily be anthropomorphized too much. How did you walk that tightrope?
Paul Yoon
I was thinking, Oh God, don’t fall from the tightrope. It was probably the biggest challenge. I wanted the voice to feel like a dog and also like more than a dog. There are moments when Etna is very doggy, at least to me. He plays tug-of-war with a rope. He marks a wall.
But I also knew that I needed to create a bridge for human readers to enter and understand this world, sometimes in ways that Etna himself might not understand it. That was the trickiest part: bringing in human readers without breaking the dream that they are experiencing the perspective of a dog.
Brian K. Mahoney
Let’s talk about the combination of realism and the fabulous. Once you decided the dog would communicate, did the story have to exist in a different reality?
Paul Yoon
I think so. For the most part, my previous work has been fairly realistic. I’ve also worked in the realm of historical fiction for some time. The first domino here was deciding to enter the mind of a dog who could communicate with other animals and with one human being. Once I made that leap, it gave me permission to try bigger jumps without being afraid.
There’s a moment in the middle of the book when Etna listens from outside to two doctors talking in a clinic. Technically, he shouldn’t be able to hear them, but he has this magical ability to move his ears and listen in on their conversation. It’s one of my favorite moments in the book. There was an exhilaration in creating that magical power for Etna.
Oscar does this strange thing where, half an hour before my wife returns home—at any time of day—he somehow knows. He stares at the door, and it’s always half an hour before she arrives. I imagine that he can teleport himself 10 miles away and track his mom coming back. I know that’s not true, but I also don’t know that it’s not true. Part of writing the novel was embracing the mysteries of the dog in my life, and dogs in general, and seeing what I could do with that creatively on the page.
Brian K. Mahoney
Why is the scene with the two doctors one of your favorites?
Paul Yoon
On a craft level, I was juggling multiple elements in that scene, and I enjoyed all the layers. On an emotional level, it’s a moment when everyone is briefly safe and housed. It’s a time of peace, and in that peace, people can be open with each other. Etna is outside, healing and resting with his new dog friend, Samaru. The two doctors are together and able to be vulnerable. They open their hearts to each other and talk about the past, present, and future.
There’s a lot of uncertainty, but there’s also a lot of hope and love. It was a space where I could bring together many of the characters I cared about and form a temporary community before the shit hits the fan, so to speak. It felt important to give them that unity and community before all hell breaks loose.
Brian K. Mahoney
It’s interesting that you mention that sense of safety, because the low clouds of mortality never dissipate. You said part of the book’s genesis was thinking about Oscar’s mortality.
Paul Yoon
Absolutely. He’s healthy—he’s 12 going on two and still acts like a puppy. He could walk forever. But these days I see him hesitate at the first step before climbing upstairs to join us in the bedroom. I don’t know how many years I have left with him. I think about that every day. It’s such a painful thing to consider that I can’t wrap my head around how to talk about it. Through this story, I was able to talk about it without talking about it, if that makes sense.
Brian K. Mahoney
It does. My mother died in 2018, my father in 2019, and then my dog Shazam died in 2020. Sometimes I wonder whether that was the most painful blow. I had conceptualized my parents’ deaths and understood that they would likely predecease me. That’s the way things go.
Paul Yoon
I don’t know if there’s a connection here, but I don’t talk to my dog out loud other than giving him commands. For the past 12 years, there has been a silent communication between us. I’m talking to him, but not out loud. We spend most of the day together in silence, and some part of him is almost always touching me—a paw, his side, his head. The sustained years of that connection without words have been very powerful in my life. Maybe it’s because it’s without words.
Brian K. Mahoney
I completely agree. I love to hike with a friend or my wife, but hiking with my dogs is different. We’re communicating without words. We’re simply together.
Paul Yoon
You’re together. There’s a kind of rope connecting you. You’re always sharing a space, whether it’s a room or a path. That shared space has made me more aware of my surroundings. If he’s fixated on something, I wonder what he’s noticing. He’s lower to the ground—how does the world look from down there? I’m more aware of our surroundings and of the fact that we’re together in them.
Brian K. Mahoney
And they want to be with you at all times.
Paul Yoon
Exactly. That was another tricky aspect of the book. Because Etna decides to undertake the journey alone, I kept thinking, I have to make sure that he has a pack. I have to make sure that he finds a pack. I was aware of his aloneness and wanted him not to be alone as he undertook this journey. That was another aspect of the story I wanted to tackle and build: He will not be alone.
Brian K. Mahoney
I wouldn’t say I was surprised by the ending because the idea of home evolves throughout the book. I could see the odyssey in it, but Etna can never return to Ithaca because Ithaca has been obliterated.
Paul Yoon
Absolutely. At first, he thinks home is a physical place. As he journeys, the idea evolves into something less about place and more about who his pack is. Who is his forever pack in an environment where you lose people, people die, and conflict continues even though the war is technically over and the country is in peacetime? There is still chaos in certain areas. How does he find a forever pack amid all of this? That is ultimately what he deeply wants.
One of the last images in the book is Etna seeing a pack of young dogs in the distance on the beach. A bird tells him, “That’s your future.” My hope is that he finds those young dogs and begins a life with them.
Brian K. Mahoney
The ending sounds a hopeful note. But the most disturbing idea in the book for me was that the qualities we cherish in dogs—their trust, devotion, and desire to work beside us—become instruments of war. Were you consciously exploring that corruption of attachment?
Paul Yoon
I was thinking more holistically about how much good we do and how much we know that we’re doing good. Every day, I look at Oscar and think, Yes, you have a wonderful life. But that’s my point of view. I wish he could tell me: Are you happy? Have I done something wrong?
I wanted to explore that inability to cross the bridge between us in multiple ways. Part of it involved thinking about what we do with animals, especially working dogs, and the complications around that. There is great beauty in the partnership between a working dog and a human. And yet I also think it’s horrible that dogs are part of war.
Brian K. Mahoney
What did leaving the country and the war unnamed allow you to do?
Paul Yoon
My hope was that it would allow readers to enter this space and relate it to whatever they are experiencing in their own lives. There are many conflicts happening now, and I was thinking about all of them. Instead of pointing to a single one, I wanted to open the book into a vaster space that felt more universal and accessible, and perhaps allowed me to speak about more universal experiences, too.
