Wild Dogs - Hardcover

Humphreys, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002005123 ISBN 13: 9780002005128

Publisher: Phyllis Bruce Books, 2004

Synopsis

The author of the bestseller The Lost Garden returnswith a luminous novel of intertwining stories that meet in a haunting, movingclimax.

Each evening at dusk, six people gather at the edge of thewoods, calling their dogs to come back to them, dogs that have turned wild andvanished from their lives. Drawn together by need, the group forms its own smallcommunity—until violence strikes unexpectedly.

Humphreys’ graceful writing, her superb eye for detail, hersensitivity and intelligence combine to produce an unforgettable story about thewild in all of us.

About this title

About the Author:

HELEN HUMPHREYS’s most recent novel, The Evening Chorus, was nominated for a Governor General’s Award and was a national bestseller. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Nocturne, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Previous novels include Coventry, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award; Afterimage, which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize for fiction; Leaving Earth, which won the Toronto Book Award; and The Lost Garden, which was a Canada Reads selection. The recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence, Humphreys lives in Kingston, Ontario.

From Publishers Weekly:

Six people stand at the edge of the woods, hoping to lure back their dogs who, released by family members who think they know best, have banded together and run wild. Similarly, the humans who once owned them form an unlikely bond, sharing both the loss of their beloved pets and fear of the people who had the power to send them away. Paying tribute to Faulkner, Canadian novelist Humphreys (The Lost Garden; Afterimage) tells her story from multiple points of view. The narrator of the first half of the book is Alice, who moves out of her boyfriend's home after he condemns her dog to life in the wild. In some of the stronger passages, Alice addresses her new lover, a wildlife biologist, in the second person; also effective is the well-rendered voice of Lily, the "idiot" of the bunch, who suffered brain damage as a result of a childhood accident with fire. Other voices are less distinct, and the surprise revelation of the wildlife biologist's identity will strike some readers as contrived. Concerned with philosophical notions of the innate wildness of humans and the nature of love, the text is plagued by the excessive use of rhetorical, existential questions, though Humphreys poignantly captures the uneasy camaraderie that can arise among strangers. Agent, Frances Hanna. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Phyllis Bruce Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0002005123
• ISBN 13: 9780002005128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 185