Sun Dog - Softcover

Monique Roffey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743220641 ISBN 13: 9780743220644

Publisher: Scribner, 2003

Synopsis

SUN DOG introduces a writer of tremendous originality and maturity with a gift for revealing the magic in the everyday. If you've ever been down about the weather, you'll know what August means...August is a large, awkward recluse, with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes, who hides his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. One winter's day he finds a rash on his arm that looks like frost. Later, something like snow begins to fall about his head. Is it some rare disease that has triggered this strange reaction, or the reappearance of his mother's old lover, Cosmo? Could it even be an allergy to the deli's new orange cheese that mocks his own colouring? As Cosmo's continuing presence taunts him with questions about his birth and upbringing, August's body begins to change with the seasons. But the most remarkable thing is that, for the first time, he feels marvellous. Through a year's wonderful metamorphosis - through snowstorm, heat wave and eclipse - August changes into himself.

About this title

About the Author

Monique Roffey is an award winning Trinidadian-born British writer. She has written four novels and a memoir. Three of her novels are set in the Caribbean and form a loose trilogy which engages with political and environmental issues in the region. The most recent of these Caribbean novels is House of Ashes, published in July 2014. Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Sans Amen, it tells the story of three characters, a gunman, a hostage and a boy soldier caught up in a botched coup d'etat. Archipelago, published in 2012, is both an epic sea voyage and an examination of climate change from the point of view of a man from the southern Caribbean. It won the OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2013. The judges commended it for its 'exploration of the greater Caribbean space in which is embedded a real-life story of trauma and loss and ultimately redemption that is both contemporary and compelling'. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, a story that maps the creolisation of a colonial couple during the early Independence years in Trinidad, received widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2010 and the Encore prize 2011. Her erotic memoir, With the Kisses of his Mouth was published in 2011 to much praise and controversy and was reviewed in the Guardian as 'a subversive work that transcends the author's personal story: it stands alone in the chasm that has opened between feminist literature and the belles du jour brigade'. Roffey has a PhD in Creative Writing and teaches regularly for The Arvon Foundation and the Writer's Lab in Skyros. She is a member of the action group Carib-Lit and teaches and runs workshops regularly in Trinidad too. She divides her time equally between London and Port of Spain. Find out more at http://www.moniqueroffey.co.uk

Review

August is a large, awkward recluse with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes who hides his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. And when his mother's old lover reappears to taunt him, August finds his body changing with the seasons and through a year's wonderful metamorphism August changes into himself. A debut novel that is both startlingly original yet warmly accessible.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743220641
• ISBN 13: 9780743220644
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400