THE LAST DAYS OF THE DOG MEN - Hardcover

Brad Watson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297818937 ISBN 13: 9780297818939

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997

Synopsis

In prose so precise and beautiful it makes a reader's hair stand on end, Brad Watson writes about people and dogs: dogs as companions, as accomplices, and as unwitting victims of human passions; and people responding to dogs as missing parts of themselves. In each of these stories he captures the animal crannies of the human personality - yearning for freedom, mourning the loss of something wild, drawn to human connection but also to thoughtless abandon and savagery without judgment. Ultimately, however, people are responsible where dogs are not: "I'm told in medieval times, " the narrator of the title story tells us, "animals were regularly put on trial, with witnesses and testimony and so forth. But it is relatively rare today."

About this title

Review:

Frequently portrayed as beer-guzzling, duck-shooting, wife-beating bigots, Southern white men don't catch much of a break these days. Yet in Last Days of Dog-Men, Brad Watson manages to portray this much-maligned beast with empathy and insight. Equally important, he also manages to make clear the importance of their dogs--an importance that can cut both ways. In the title story, for example, a man has an affair that's consummated in the foam-rubber pole-vault pad at the local playing field. When his wife finds out, she gets even the surest way she knows how, by having his dog put to sleep.

From the Publisher:

In Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson brings us an anthology unlike any other: stories about dogs and people and their undeniable, unbreakable link to one another. Here Watson unerringly captures the canine component of the human personality--yearning for freedom, mourning the loss of something wild, drawn to human connection but also to thoughtless abandon and savagery without judgment--while portraying dogs as the loyal servants to their masters' complex emotional needs.

In precise and beautiful prose Brad Watson tells stories that are funny, dark, and vividly expressive. Last Days of the Dog-Men is a stellar collection heralding the arrival of a true talent.

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0297818937
• ISBN 13: 9780297818939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 146