Dog Days

Labarge, Emily

ISBN 13: 9798893380477

Published by Transit Books, 2026

About this Item

New! // A NEW YORK TIMES AND LITERARY HUB MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK Dog Days unfolds in the long shadow of freak violence--where language stammers, time loops, and the body remembers what the mind can't. 'An incandescent book, a landmark in how to bring language to bear on the unspeakable. Beautiful, uncompromising, rigorous and totally original.'--Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City In 2009, Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage while on vacation. A crocheted blanket was placed over her head while Mrs. Doubtfire and 'Agnus Dei' played on repeat. In the years that follow, a therapist encourages her to lie in exactly the same position, 'just like how it happened, for as long as it happened, and for as long as it takes until the pain comes out'--otherwise it will never leave. She tries to find 'the good story' neat, polite, reassuring. But what happens to the things the good story leaves out? A high-voltage synthesis of memoir, criticism, and psychoanalytic theory--drawing upon film and writing from Mulholland Drive to It's a Wonderful Life, Virginia Woolf to Janet Malcolm-- Dog Days writes into this question. How do language and institutions constrain and distort our understanding of trauma, violence, and care? How might we write otherwise, telling a story, and its aftermath, on our own terms? The result is not only a prose work but also a practice: an insistence on more radical, more complex forms of engagement, a search for the place where writing becomes a way of surviving.

Seller Inventory # 660983

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Dog Days
• Publisher: Transit Books
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798893380477
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • New & Recommended

About this title

Synopsis

"A stunning memoir."—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

A NEW YORK TIMES AND LIT HUB MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • A JUNE ABA INDIE NEXT PICK

Dog Days unfolds in the long shadow of freak violence—where language stammers, time loops, and the body remembers what the mind can’t.

In 2009, Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage while on vacation. A crocheted blanket was placed over her head while Mrs. Doubtfire and “Agnus Dei” played on repeat.

In the years that follow, a therapist encourages her to lie in exactly the same position, “just like how it happened, for as long as it happened, and for as long as it takes until the pain comes out”—otherwise it will never leave. She tries to find “the good story”: neat, polite, reassuring. But what happens to the things the good story leaves out?

A high-voltage synthesis of memoir, criticism, and psychoanalytic theory—drawing upon film and writing from Mulholland Drive to It’s a Wonderful Life, Virginia Woolf to Janet Malcolm—Dog Days writes into this question. How do language and institutions constrain and distort our understanding of trauma, violence, and care? How might we write otherwise, telling a story, and its aftermath, on our own terms? The result is not only a prose work but also a practice: an insistence on more radical, more complex forms of engagement, a search for the place where writing becomes a way of surviving.

About the Author

Emily LaBarge is a Canadian writer based in London. Her essays and criticism have appeared in Granta, The London Review of Books, Artforum, Bookforum, Frieze, and The Paris Review, among others. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and 4Columns. Dog Days is her first book.