Dogfight: And Other Stories - Softcover

Michael Knight

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452278945 ISBN 13: 9780452278943

Publisher: Plume, 1998

Synopsis

A collection of ten deeply insightful stories captures with psychological insight the pathos and small triumphs of everyday life, with its fumbling attempts at deeper human relations, disappointments, and moments of grace. Original.

About this title

From Library Journal

Dogfight, Knight's evocative first collection of short stories, is filled with sensitive 1990s men, slightly sad and confused, especially concerning the opposite sex. Fortunately, his characters don't wear their big hearts on their sleeves; if anything, they confront life's difficulties bemused, sometimes resigned, but still full of wonder. In "Sundays," a young teacher looking for domesticity can't find it, even in a neighborhood of single and sympathetic mothers. The sadness of a man returning to his old circle of friends after his divorce is revealed in "Poker." Not all the guys are saints: in "The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes," a husband reflects on a future without his recently disabled wife, and in "A Bad Man, So Pretty," the focus turns to a helplessly angry and violent young man. Yet the author is skillful enough not to let these flaws dominate his characterizations, and even the lonely voyeur of "Now You See Her" comes off more sweet than pathetic. Compared with these stories, however, Knight's first novel, Divining Rod, is a disappointment. It's a tale of adultery, plain and simple, complete with a young wife, her much older husband, and a young neighbor who is destined to cuckold him. There's still some introspection here, but as a whole the writing is not terribly original, as if the author were trying to mainstream his work for the masses hungering for romance and tragedy. Knight can do better?and he will. The stories are recommended; the novel is not.
-?Marc A. Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

These 10 distinctive and intensely affecting stories confirm Knight as a writer of significant gifts. In short narratives that invariably entice the reader with an arresting opening sentence, he establishes a solid sense of place, using the local color of his native Alabama, and transforms ordinary people into nearly mythic figures. The first story, "Now You See Her," sets the stage, constructing a conflict of nearly Oedipal proportions. A veterinarian widower and his teenage son, Xavier, who calls himself X, spy on Grace, their next-door neighbor, who "it would appear... renounced clothing altogether"; the surprising climax occurs when her dog suddenly takes ill. In many of Knight's offerings, animals act as agents of change: in the title story, a dogfight is the catalyst for an adulterous affair and results in a parallel clash between the dogs' owners. "Gerald's Monkey" uses a man's desire for a pet monkey to examine the emotional aftermath of Vietnam. Knight demonstrates agility with a diversity of viewpoints: he is equally at ease with first-person narration or third, an adult perspective or an adolescent's, as in a stunner called "A Bad Man, So Pretty" (taken from a Muhammad Ali quote) that works up to a Cain and Abel-style confrontation. Knight's characters are both recognizable and transcendent, suddenly drawn into trespassing the ordinary limits of their lives to enter the realm of allegory.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0452278945
• ISBN 13: 9780452278943
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176