Red Dog, Red Dog

Description

An extraordinary novel about family from one of Canada's most acclaimed poets. An epic novel of unrequited dreams and forestalled lives, Red Dog, Red Dog unfolds over the course of one week in and around a small town in British Columbia, 1958. Elmer Stark is a violent man with a troubled past. Lillian, who married Elmer shortly after the Depression, finds herself retreating steadily into isolation. Their sons, Tom and Eddy, now in their twenties, are bound together by the secrets of their childhood years. As Eddy speeds freely along his reckless path, Tom, a loner, tries to sense from the fragments of the past. Then one night at a party, Eddy goes too far, and a dramatic spiral of events is set in motion. Here is a novel about hardship and loss, revenge and ancient loyalties, about the sweetness of first love and the power of memory. A richly textured portrait of a time and a place, filled with moments of harrowing violence and breathtaking descriptions of the natural world, Red Dog, Red Dog is a deeply moving novel that explores the legacies of the past and the possibilities of salvation.

Patrick Lane is the author of There Is a Season (2004), his highly acclaimed memoir, which won the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence and the inaugural British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction. One of the country's most celebrated poets, he has received numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award and two National Magazine Awards. Lane lives near Victoria, B.C., with his wife, the poet Lorna Crozier. Red Dog, Red Dog is his debut novel.

Lane is undeniably an accomplished writer...and his achievement here is his evocation of a forbidding landscape as the element in which these embittered characters have their being...It is fitting that Lane's oracular first novel ends not conclusively but with a hint of the continuation of the kind of story it has told so well * TLS * Set in 1958, with flashbacks to the Depression and settler eras, this impressive tale of redneck life in British Columbia exudes suffering and menace. -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times * The tale, with Tom and Eddy at its heart, is one of loathing, neglect, abuse and brutality, with little redemption except the powerful, vivid quality of the writing itself...Lane is talented and five decades as a poet are evident in his prose: rich and evocative, yet always precise. * Observer * the writing is beautiful. -- Kate Saunders * The Times * [a] formidable debut. -- Catherine Taylor * Guardian *