Red Dog, Red Dog [Hardcover]

 

 

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Whoa! This is one of those books that I wonder if I have the skill to put into words all that the book is. But I'll give it my best shot. Set in the 1950s, mostly in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia (but also into Alberta, Montana and Washington) This is the story of a poor rural family and it's dark secrets. It is a story of pain and suffering and redemption.

No time frame is ever definitively given in the book. We never know the year or the day and the narrative tells this family's story from the mid/late 1800s up to the 1950s. We know the present time is the fifties due to clues in the writing, such as a reference to Elvis as a new singer. We can figure out the past dates as the story goes back to the great-grandparents of the modern characters. With no reference to the time, it can be unsettling as the narrative sways back and forth within chapters from an omnipotent narrator of the present to the narrative of a baby girl buried when she was just six months old. Alice, as she was named, was told stories by her father at her graveside his whole life and she has some connection to the spirits of the family from which she hears the family's story. Also, unsettling, once it dawned upon me (about 1/4 of the way into the book) was the author's non-use of any quotation marks, as if the narrators are telling you a story from the past, saying what he said and she said without actually having anyone speak. It is definitely a very compelling voice the author has chosen.

Also with no time reference one doesn't really know the length of time that passes during the story of the modern characters, though the jacket flap tells me it is one week, which seems feasible to me. The main characters are only a part of the story, not really even the most important part. It is the past which developed this family into who it is and created the ones now living. The past is full of dark stories which show how the various characters became sad or violent while suffering and enduring, how the past continues on generation after generation. More of the past is written about than of the main modern characters but it is all relevant to the bitter and redeeming surprise ending.

The writing is beautiful. One could read passages aloud for pure enjoyment, and I did do this myself, which is a rare occurrence for me. The story unfolds slowly, and at times one may feel it is meandering away from a cohesive plot, but it always gets back on track and the reader realizes at certain points the meaning of those wayward sub-plots. I really enjoyed the book. It is very deep and certainly depressing but the characterization is portrayed brilliantly and the reader suddenly realizes they care for these people. If you are looking for a page-turning, linear, plot driven book this one is not for you. However, if you like to get inside the heads of people who live a tormented life (in one way or another) you will find this story very satisfying. In fact, I think this is the type of book that one would enjoy even more the second time around as hidden meanings would make one nod in recognition of where the story is going. I most likely will re-read this book again some day.

The Canadian poet, Patrick Lane, has certainly delivered one very bleary read of a book in his debut novel, "Red Dog, Red Dog". Everything in this story of the Stark family life in a remote part of the Okanagan Valley in the 1950s is Dostoevskian. It is a tale consumed with ugliness, pathos, sadness, brutality, grief, tragedy, and malevolence. At the end of it the reader is left with the ultimate conclusion that blood or family ties have to be stronger than water for all this woe to be visited on a family for succeeding generations. Everyone in the story seems to have unresolved issues that gnaw away at their inner souls until they lash out and do the unthinkable. While it is not hard to picture an individual consumed by anger, imagine a whole family in this predicament! "Red Dog, Red Dog" is full of frustrated dreams, dysfunctional relationships, violent behaviour, and immature attitudes, all contained in a family whose only unity is the instinct to survive over succeeding generations. Nevertheless, Lane does a credible job in eliciting the reader's sympathy for the Starks as they struggle to survive a hostile world of their own making. The reader senses that this family may ultimately fail because, after so many fits and starts in life, they have little to show for their efforts. The Starks have hauled their emotional baggage across the great Canadian West to one of its most pleasant spots, the northern Okanagan, as a last ditch-effort to restart their lagging fortunes. In creating this maladjusted family, the author is perhaps telling us that there is something more decisive than just making it on the land that determines whether people will stay around for succeeding generations. The Starks are so taken up with their own troubles that they never become a viable part of community life. Just to raise the reader's hopes a bit, Lane does provide a smaller glimmer of redemption at the end when Tommy and his common-law wife, Marilyn, are the only survivors of this crushing saga. His prose as it describes both the Starks's natural and human worlds, is sensitive and suitable for the occasion. His voice as a poet definitely comes through very clearly in how he captures the rawness of emotion in this family's hopeless struggles to make a go of it. A great read if you can ride through the despair while empathizing with the Starks in their calamity!

"...where a bone cage could last a thousand years under the moon [...] The hills rose parched from the still lakes, the mountains beyond them faded to a mauve so pale they seemed stones under ice." There can be vibrant beauty in harsh, sparse, desert-like landscapes, so much better suited to animals than to human beings. Evoking its atmosphere through achingly beautiful flowing lyrical language, depicting its intricate details, award winning Canadian poet and author Patrick Lane captures the essence of the atypical landscape of the northern edge of the Great Plains in Canada. Contrasting environment with the bleak reality of life for the people who inhabit this wild and unforgiving land, Lane has created a powerful, thought-provoking and at times challenging and unsettling novel.

Set in 1958 in a small remote community in the southern Okanagan region, the story centres on the two Stark brothers, their family and a group of friends, enemies and neighbours. While the actual events take place in the space of a week, the narrative moves in flashbacks to previous generations and the early settler years. After roaming through the Prairies since his early teenage years in search of work, whether as a farm hand, in mills or as day labourer, Father Elmer Stark has settled his family here in a place of "even more desolate towns that turned into villages, villages into clusters of trailers and isolated shacks in the trees, nothing beyond that bush that ran clear to the tundra." The people, carrying the inherited burden of poverty and misery are still suffering from the late fallout of the Depression in that region. In their struggle to make ends meet they easily turn to violence, alcohol and drugs, petty and major crimes.

With a few strokes, Lane creates vivid characters in complex relationships. The Stark brothers, Tom and Eddy, are an excellent study in contrast. "For Eddy, the world was without borders. He learned that from both Father and Mother. [...] Eddy's crimes and misdemeanours, the things he did and didn't do, were just part of his life". Tom was very different. "He could get lost in stories of other places and other lives [...]For Eddy, stories about the past, anyone's past, were deadly and he wanted none of it." From a very young age, Tom quietly, often undetected, listened to the stories Father told Alice, the baby sister who died just short of six months old. It was his way of mourning at his daughter's grave. While Lane depicts the many action scenarios with cinematographic precision, he evokes the changing moods and behaviours of the various individuals with a combination of disgust, understanding and compassion. Compassion? Yes, empathy comes to the fore when Alice's spirit takes over part of the novel's narrative, creating a gentle, caring countervailing force in her depiction of the family's history and current struggle against misery. And not only here, a glimmer of positive change emerges over time, offering hope to those who can make it their own.

This is not an easy novel to read. The poetic beauty of Lane's language does not always fit or alleviate the sense of irritation and displeasure the reader feels with, especially, the precise description of arbitrary violence and careless disregard of others. However, drawing on his own wide-ranging experiences and a deep familiarity with the land and the region's stories, Lane captures a place and its inhabitants that is authentic as it was real in the specific region and period of time. It is a powerful and an significant book that allows important lessons to be drawn, especially when addressing issues of disenchanted and malleable youth. An amazing achievement for a debut novel by a poet of long standing. [Friederike Knabe]

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5.0 out of 5 stars highly recommend
...there is no enjoying this book - but it certainly is in the "must-read" category!

Published on Sep 14 2009 by grace

3.0 out of 5 stars Meh. Could take it over leave it.
I read this book because it was a Giller Prize finalist. And because it was a Giller finalist, I had high hopes for this book. Read more

Published on Mar 23 2009 by NorthVan Dave

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