From Amazon.com
The mythical Melanesian island on which
Teeth of the Dog is set is nothing if not lively. A Third World hash of shantytowns, strip clubs, bored hustlers, and uncertain electricity, Vanduu is abuzz not only with native lore and jarringly inescapable disco music but also with the unsettling palpitations of intrigue. In her fourth novel, Jill Ciment deftly weaves a tale of love and suspense into her colorful rendering of Vanduuan life, creating a story as tense as it is atmospheric. American vacationers Thomas and Helene Strauss, finding themselves underwhelmed by island amenities, spend much of the novel's first half glumly acknowledging the faltering trajectory of their marriage. Helene, years younger than her once-eminent anthropologist husband, has dragged him to this tourist-unfriendly backwater to--metaphorically and literally--get a rise out of him, prostate cancer having left him both world-weary and impotent. When Thomas suffers tragedy, and a dissolute American named Adam Finster preys on Helene's discontents, she's pitched into the sprawling and chaotic world of Vanduu with only her wits and Finster's help--perhaps--to save her.
"New world devours old," Finster recalls from Vanduuan lore. "The foam is the mark of its voracious appetite. Teeth of the dog, the natives call it." Moments like these, when Ciment depicts the jostling of cultures, are nearly as much fun as watching Helene try to transmute desperation, deciphering a world she'd rather not have visited. Brisk, lush, and mildly suspenseful, Teeth of the Dog, while something short of a thriller, nonetheless reveals a fascinating world as rich in danger as it is in uncertainty. --Ben Guterson
From Publishers Weekly
Ciment's (Half a Life) multilayered novel is a taut, intelligent literary thriller in which character and fate, and a yawning chasm of cultural differences, unite to cause tragedy. Distinguished anthropologist Thomas Strauss and his substantially younger wife, Helene, do not find much paradise in paradise, the Melanesian island of Vanduu. What they do find is a complex, frequently paradoxical culture where religious betel addicts have crimson-colored teeth, Rambo is available in Hindi and hotels all offer air-conditioning but not necessarily electricity. Also on Vanduu is Finster, a young, stoned-out American opportunist who, functioning as Miss Lonelyhearts of Oceania, imports cheap Woolworth perfume to sell to the Vanduuans as the ultimate aphrodisiac. With Thomas dying of prostate cancer, Helene loving him but yearning for physical attention and Finster wanting someone?anyone?Ciment creates a situation ripe for disaster. Increasingly menacing events occur: Thomas is stoned by villagers after he accidentally kills a child, and Helene finds herself in a run-for-your-life situation. Unfortunately for her, she learns that her presumed refuge, the U.S. consulate, is a virtual closed door: with Marcos no longer controlling the Philippines, Vanduu is the U.S.'s proposed new strategic ally in the Pacific, and placating the islanders takes precedence over Helene's safety. Ciment uses the island's physical isolation to reflect her characters' emotional insularity and to emphasize their role as outsiders in a dangerous atmosphere. When Helene, in mounting panic, turns to Finster for rescue, drink, drugs and sex complicate their plans. This ultimately sad and knowing tour of human frailty will serve to secure Ciment's reputation for intelligent themes and uncompromising prose.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
