Customer Reviews

Apologizing to Dogs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Joe Coomer is, quite simply, one of our best writers. His earlier novel The Loop (out of print, grab a copy if you can find it) is one of the most delightful and moving novels of the decade. Apologizing to Dogs shows again that he can make eccentric characters more alive and real than most of the real people you'll ever meet. Writing novels myself, I usually think when reading, I could do that. But when reading Coomer, I just watch the language flow and and let the mystery and joy overtake me, wondering how he does it. His earlier novels have all been with small publishing houses that were not able to give him the push he deserves. This new one is put out by Scribner, which hopefully will give him the exposure he needs to reach the audience which is surely there. Read this book. You'll consider it the discovery of the year.

Although the characters were quirky and a bit eccentric, I just couldn't get into the day to day activities of the 12 homes/storefronts that remain on Worth Row. Effie, the 71 year old snoop, keeps a diary of everyone's comings and goings. There are more secrets going on here than on any soap opera on the air today. The fact that this title had the word "dog" in it is what drew me to it. Too bad there wasn't more of the dog and less of the other characters.

This convoluted plot would have been less surprising if it had shown itself centuries ago in three acts as a performance before Shakespearean audiences. The book isn't masterly and the plot probably isn't as tightly woven as it might be. But the characters are believable, the setting, almost bizarre enough to have come out of Wentworth, Ohio, by a popular horror writer, minus all the occult and parapsychology.

An ingrown neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas, full of personal histories and human flaws reaches a series of climaxes (no pun intended) during a period of a few hours and in the end the reader is left with a handful of seeds for his own imagination to sprout and blossom. Readers familiar with Guy Clark might hear the lyrics of `Boats to Build' repeating themselves through some of the episodes. The coincidence of similarity might suggest Coomer is a Guy Clark aficionado, or that Guy found the story an inspiration for his song. Either way, the two make a matched set.

Coomer owes no apologies to dogs or readers for this one.

This book is hard to put down, it is chock full of quirky characters. A small community of antique sellers in Texas, everyone has a secret, and they are all woven together. You will also enjoy his other books.

Do you want multifaceted characters? Do you want humor? Do you want tragic characters who somehow have an implacable hope?

Apologizing to dogs is not Shakespeare, but it is the makings of a tragic/comedy. You have divorce, resentment, blackmail. lost dreams, and forlorn hopes all in a single contemporary Southern Setting in this book. Will you be elevated to a new level? No. Will you be brought to a mad-cap place with unbelievable characters that somehow, are resonant? Yes.

Please read this book. If not only to be amused (it would make a wonderful film) but also to be taken away from the doldrums of "real" life. This is a fun novel.

Joe Coomer, Apologizing to Dogs (Scribner's, 1999)

Apologizing to Dogs does, finally, take off. If you're fifty pages into it and ready to throw it into the fire, take heed; it does eventually start going somewhere. The problem is, it takes so long to get there.

Apologizing to Dogs is, ultimately, the story of Worth Row, a series of antique shops in Fort Worth, Texas, and its inhabitants (including the stray dog to whom one character apologizes). Worth Row has stood for years, with inhabitants coming and going, all along the way building up secrets, lies, blackmail, and other various oddities. But then a stray dog digs for a bone, and the radio reports a tornado warning, and it all starts to unravel like one big sweater. It's a small premise for a book, but a good one, and it's been done many times in the past. The problem with Apologizing to Dogs is that Coomer tries to pack just too much into the book without it really needing to be there; it's almost as if he thought that if he focused on a few main plotlines, the book would be too short, so he added a few more for filler. The end result is that a good portion of the book, especially during the first three quarters, feels like filler. Some sections drag on forever, while others flit by like nobody's business. Once it all comes together eighty or ninety pages form the end, everything falls into place and this becomes a fine comedic (in a deadpan way) novel. It's just getting through the first bit that's likely to alienate some readers. ** 1/2

This is a fine novel, and there all too few of those. It has a few flaws. The author loses control over the material at a pivotal time, and too often we must hear characters tell each other things we already know. But he is usually such a fine writer and the story itself is such fun that this book is well worth it. Not enough readers have discovered the genius of Joe Coomer.

Apologising to Dogs is a terrific read - and possibly my favourite novel by Mr Coomer. The prose is crisp, the plot original, Coomer's characters funny and well drawn. This novel would make a very funny movie.

Except for Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, I have never laughed out loud at any other book. Coomer's quirky characters and their intertwined lives are utterly charming.

This is a strange, but entertaining book. It was quite funny and very strangely written with different P.O.V.s all over the place. I don't know that I would read another book by this author though everything was well-written. The characters were certainly ridiculous, but I don't know how well it ended - some storylines weren't wrapped up enough. I don't think I would recommend it either. It just didn't seem complete somehow... something was missing.