When did you last read a great American novel???

I've been hearing about how spectacular this book is for a while now and plan to read it ASAP. If you haven't heard about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, below are quotes from some of the top critics/publications/writers. David Wroblewski wrote the novel over a 10-year period while he was working as a software developer. The most impressive thing is that this is David's first novel. If you like Oprah's Book Club and her choices, you'll want to read it. Oprah said this is one of her all-time favorite books, and it is the current #1 book on the New York Times Best Seller List for fiction (read the NY Times review on it).

"I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. In the end, this isn't a novel about dogs or heartland America, it's a novel about the human heart and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate.... I don't reread many books because life is too short. I will be re-reading this one."
— Stephen KingStephen King, author of Duma Key

A CLASSIC IN THE MAKING... The scope of this book, its psychological insight and lyrical mastery, make it one of the best novels of the year, and a perfect, comforting joy of a book for summer.
— O Magazine, July 2008

The most enchanting debut novel of the summer... this is a great, big, mesmerizing read, audaciously envisioned as classic Americana.... Pick up this book and expect to feel very, very reluctant to put it down.
— Janet Maslin, New York Times

Nothing quite compares to my experience of reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. This debut.... is one of the most stunning, elegant books I have ever read.... what can deservedly be called a great American novel.
— Lisa Jennifer Selzman, Houston Chronicle

I am completely smitten.... The most hauntingly impressive debut I’ve read all year.... Edgar might be silent, but his story will echo with readers for a long time.
— Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor

It's the must-read of the summer...
— People Magazine

The Great American Novel is something like a unicorn – rare and wonderful.... Yet every few years or so, we trip across some semblance of one.... The Story of Edgar Sawtelle... [will] leave you crying for more....
— Elle Magazine, June 2008

Grand and unforgettable.
— Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World (cover review)

The best book I’ve read in a long time. It is a class apart—a 570-page literary novel that has as much emotional punch as anything I have ever read.
— Michael Fraser, Publishers Weekly "Galley Talk"

"This remarkable hybrid seems like an impossibility: an American 'Hamlet,' both ghost story and melodrama, a coming of age tale, a hymn to the land — and, central to it all, some of the best writing about the inner lives of dogs anywhere. The Story of Edgar Sawtelleis a wooly, unlikely, daring book, and wildly satisfying."
— Mark DMark Doty, author of Dog Years

"I doubt we'll see a finer literary debut this year than The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. David Wroblewski's got storytelling talent to burn and a big, generous heart to go with it."
— Richard RussoRichard Russo, author of Bridge of Sighs