It is 1952 in the dark back streets of the bar district of Pusan, South Korea. An American naval serviceman makes his way to a small herbalist shop. There, he negotiates the purchase of a potent poison. He tells the herbalist he needs to kill rats on the ship. To demonstrate its potency, the herbalist administers a dose to a three-legged stray dog using a sharpened bamboo reed. The American watches coldly as the dog convulses and dies. He barters, giving the herbalist penicillin in return for the poison.

In 1919, John Sawtelle and his wife Violet purchase a farm in northern Wisconsin to pursue his dream of breeding dogs. Impressed by the theoretical work of Blessed Gregor Mendel, a monk in Czechoslovakia who produced groundbreaking studies on crossbreeding pea plants, Sewell is intent on creating an entirely new breed of dog after he chances to meet a magnificent dog owned by a neighbor: “It was one of those rare days when everything in a person’s life feels connected” (15).

Over the years, John’s experiments with breeding dogs become more sophisticated. He dreams of breeding a dog capable of logical decisions. He and Violent have two sons, Edgar and Claude, “as different from each other as night and day” (19).