Dogwalker: Stories [Paperback]

Arthur Bradford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 27, 2002

Tender and satiric, hilarious and humane, Dogwalker plunks readers down in a land of misfits and the circumstantially strange–where one young man buys drugs from a dealer who locks his customers in a closet, while another lands a cat-faced circus freak for a roommate, and yet another must choose between his pregnant wife and the ten-pound slug he’s convinced will bring him a fortune. And throughout these stories moves a divinely inspired collection of dogs: three-legged, no-legged, dogs that sing, that talk, and that give birth to humans. Brilliant, perplexing, and moving, this is a daring debut that strolls along society’s fringes and unearths strange beauty among its misfits

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bradford's bizarre, species-crossing debut collection of 12 stories hits the mark with its singular characters and odd scenarios, its eccentricities blissfully unforced. Peopled by a cast of hybrid dog-men, cat-faced circus freaks and sweetly bemused, more-or-less ordinary humans, these tales are compact gems, at once provocative and sweet. "Mattress" chronicles the nameless narrator's quest for the eponymous bedding, showcasing the carefree, harmless ethos of a genuine slacker; the plot of "Six Dog Christmas" can be deduced from the title, yet this delicious morsel (it clocks in at under five pages) is a serious charmer. Longer and less focused, though still held together by Bradford's loopy internal logic, is the meandering "Dogs," in which a man impregnates a dog, thus initiating an unsettling series of events involving potential messiahs and a woman in an iron lung giving birth to a litter of puppies. Though Bradford plays with weighty ideas (faith, the line separating man and beast), his less-is-more style may leave some readers wishing for a thicker, meatier text to chew on. However, even the most skeptical will be charmed by his guileless narrative voice. Every story is told from the first person, and though Bradford employs several narrators, the voice throughout remains consistent. Frank, good-hearted, slightly na‹ve, almost childlike in its simple chronicling of events, it will engage the reader immediately. (Aug. 24)Forecast: Bradford, an O. Henry Award winner, will attract younger readers with his particular brand of wacky weirdness. Though the jacket a closeup of a dog doesn't indicate the strange goings-on within, raves from Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace and David Sedaris will snag browsers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Of the 12 stories in this first collection by O. Henry Award-winning author Bradford, seven are about dogs. The lead story, Catface, tells of a mutant family, mutant puppies, and a young man whose generosity embraces them all. Mattress recounts the humorous high jinks of buying and losing a mattress, while in South for the Winter the oddball narrator borrows his blind friend's car for a jaunt to a warmer climate. Mollusks is the goofy, far-out tale of finding a gargantuan slug in a glove compartment, and the outlandish and playful Little Rodney and Bill McQuill entertain as well. Using first-person narrative throughout, Bradford makes the bizarre seem plausible, but both characters and stories can be troubling and upsetting. Bradford peoples his tales with society's dropouts, misfits, and outcasts, burdened with a whole gamut of emotional and physical problems. Even so, he reserves a place for innocence, and the stories have an upbeat ending. For larger fiction collections.Mary Szczesiul, Roseville P.L., MI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (August 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375726691
• ISBN-13: 978-0375726699
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #453,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Bradford was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. An O Henry Award winner, he has published fiction and non-fiction in Esquire, McSweeney's, Men's Journal, and the NY Times. He is also the creator and director of "How's Your News?", a documentary film series which has been broadcast on HBO, PBS and MTV. He directs a summer camp and lives in Portland, Oregon.

website:
http://artbradford.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, by Gum!, August 23, 2001

By 

R. Burlingame (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dogwalker: Stories (Hardcover)

This is a wonderul collection of stories. David Foster Wallace hits the nail on the head when he says that reading Bradford is like having lunch with the part of you that dreams at night. Strange things occur and exceedingly pleasant, non-neurotic first-person narrators react as you would in a dream: they note the odd situations they find themselves in but then move on (with wonderful results). It's like being able to slow your dreams down--not to mention remember them--and savor all the strange details. The writing is also blissfully clean. I noticed one of the comments above mentioned Bradford's sideburns. I saw a reading and let me tell you: his gums are not to be believed (let's pray he keeps his teeth). See a reading if you can, and enjoy the book, it's well worth a read.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's He Writing In There?, July 14, 2002

By 

Slazz (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogwalker: Stories (Hardcover)

I'm pretty sure that Tom Waits mated with a book and the result is Arthur Bradford. If I told you that the characters in Dogwalker live on the same block as The Eyeball Kid and Table Top Joe, and if you understood that, you should not only have read this book by now - you should be actively refusing to loan it out to relatives and friends without a security deposit. Each chapter in Dogwalker reads like the discovery of a new and fascinating insect; if that isn't praise, what is?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars stray pets & roommates, November 30, 2008

By 

gonzobrarian - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dogwalker: Stories (Paperback)

Reading Dogwalker, a bizarre collection of stories by Arthur Bradford is well worth the short time it takes to transform the mundane into the weirdness we so crave for amusement. All of the stories contained within revolve around Bradford's attempts in finding some solace from one's self-imposed boredom and stagnation through stray canines and equally stray roommates. If it means anything, this collection takes place throughout Texas; apparently, there is a lot of weird down there.

Bradford writes with childlike simplicity and whimsy, though his plots border on the uber-strange and even the horrific. Cat-faced carnies, fruit sculpting with chainsaws, blind friends who own cars, and the glamour of giant slugs are just some of the musings Bradford could expound on in greater detail; stories I'd happily delve into when in need of a fresh bizarro-cleanse. Yet he tends to focus on dogs and roommates, and the fleeting affection he has for both. By whatever circumstance, both tend to be maimed, mutated or psychologically unhinged, yet that doesn't stop him from adopting each for a brief laugh to pass the time.

What is surprising about this collection of stories is the degree of openness or ambivalence set forth by Bradford. While he languidly chooses his own adventure in each, the degree of tension that rises in most of the stories is soon enough offset by a delicate weirdness that prevents real malice from taking over and sending the reader dashing to the nearest bottle of Pepto. Hence, a slight hint of unsettling will envelop the reader, which is exactly what a good collection of short stories is supposed to do. It was a very quick read and stories like Mollusks, The House of Alan Matthews, Bill McQuill, Chainsaw Apple and Roslyn's Dog tend to linger in my mind, to the extent that I hope Bradford will publish more.