Customer Reviews

Even the Dogs

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

 

 

Story Overview

During the Christmas holidays, a man is found dead in his flat. It appears he has been there for quite some time. The flat is squalid, filthy, empty of most things you would expect. The man's body is in bad shape. The police are unsure if there has been foul play and begin an investigation. Who is this man? How did he come to by lying here ... dead and apparently neglected ... in this seemingly abandoned apartment?

There are voices who could shed light on this mystery. They seem to know this man--Robert is his name. But they don't know what happened to him either. So they follow along as the investigation into the man's death continues ... following the body to the morgue, through the autopsy and inquest and finally to his cremation. Along the way, the voices shed light on who they are and who Robert was. For these voices are the voices of addicts, alcoholics and the disenfranchised--the people who live at the fringes of society, who remember better days but can't quite make their way out of the grip of drugs or drink. In their way, they attempt to give Robert a story. By doing so, they honor their friend in the only way that have left as they themselves are as dead and neglected as Robert.

My Thoughts

I'm not going to lie to you; this isn't an easy book. There were times when I was ready to quit as I was confused and getting a headache. But because I got a review copy, I persevered and I'm glad I did. In the end, I came to appreciate the book and found myself moved by it. Just because a book is a difficult read doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. However, there are things you should know going in.

First, the book is not written in a straightforward narrative. Although the basic structure is the discovery of the body and its subsequent trip toward cremation, the book is written in a jumbled, fractured "stream of consciousness" style that takes some getting used to. The voices of the the dead man's friends (who seem to be dead themselves) appear and disappear. Paragraphs go on and on only to end in a fragment. The collective voices of the dead talk about the progress of the body and then it switches to the thoughts of a specific person, such as Danny trying to score some heroin before he experiences the "rattles" (which I took to mean detox effects). Here is an example of three paragraphs that appear in a row:

Two of them laid out together on the narrow bed but it weren't never going to be like that. And where was she now. What would she say when he told her. Would she

Mike would know what to do. Danny thought. Mike would be at the Parkside squats and would know what was going on, what had happened, what to do. Might even have some gear or know where to get some where to

Didn't even need to be like that anyway sometimes with Laura. Sometimes just, it was like being mates, like they were ten or fifteen years younger and still bunking off school and having a laugh....

Did you ever see the movie Memento, which is told backwards and in fragments? This book is kind of like that. You get bits and pieces of information, here and there, and you need to put them together in some kind of order to get the story of Robert and his friends. By the end of the book, I was surprised how much I came to know these people. You don't really get told about them as you do in a typical novel. Rather, you inhabit their heads for a brief time. This ended up being oddly effective, yet it requires participation and work by the reader.

The other thing you should know is that the book is set in England and includes a lot of terms that American readers might find unfamiliar. Eventually, I began to figure things out, but it made the book an even more difficult read for me. However, you don't need to suffer the same fate as me as the author has thoughtfully provided a list of definitions for some of the terms to help you along. (I only wish I had found this information BEFORE reading the book!) This way, you don't have to struggle along wondering if giro is indeed welfare money. (It is.)

Speaking of the author, I have to tell you that he contacted me after I wrote briefly about this book in my book blog. Hew wrote:

I hope you don't mind me emailing you like this, but I couldn't help noticing you'd mentioned my new book on your blog. Just wanted to say thanks for that - and thanks for persevering even though, as I'll freely admit, it's not always an easy read. In case you're interested, there's some info on the background to the book and how I came to write it here -[...]

And you can bet I went right on over and checked out that link, and it was extremely helpful and informative.

So here is what I suggest if you decide to read this book (and I do think it is worth reading):

1. Read the background information on the book.
2. Review the list of slang terms before starting reading.

I think doing these two things will help immensely so you don't have to struggle as much as I did. However, if you are the type of reader who doesn't like to work a little bit sometimes, then I don't think this book is for you anyway.

One final caveat: There is strong language in the book (words that rhyme with Puck and Punt are sprinkled liberally throughout.) In addition, there are graphic descriptions of an autopsy. Plus the book focuses on the lives of drug addicts and alcoholics, which is not everyone's cup of tea.

My Final Recommendation

If I haven't scared you off yet (and that isn't my intent at all), I think you'll find a worthwhile book that has something important to say about drug and alcohol addiction and what it might feel like to live on the fringes of society. I ended up being more affected by this book than I anticipated, and I encourage you to give a go. And to help encourage you a bit more, I'll be giving away my Advance Reading Copy. You can enter by clicking here.

In the end, I'm giving the book 3.5 stars. For me, this ranking is reserved for books that I don't think have general appeal but are worthwhile. In other words, these are books that need a certain type of reader to fully appreciate them. Although I struggled with this book and wouldn't categorize it as a "favorite," I'm glad I read it. It took me to some uncomfortable places, but I suspect this book will stay with me for some time.

Jon McGregor's books are never an easy read, but they are worth the effort. If the reader is willing to go with the flow of the stream of consciousness, not need to know exactly where they are or who is narrating, their persistence will eventually pay off, everything will fall into place and the sheer scope of what the book has achieved is likely to have an impact that is profound and unforgettable. That at least was the case with the author's first two books - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and So Many Ways to Begin. Even the Dogs however is a different case altogether.

Another reason why Jon McGregor's books can be difficult to read is their choice of subject matter. It's often about ordinary people, living hard, grim lives, caught up in their own problems, that the author is able to redeem through some exquisite poetic observations, enlightening the subject through a few fleeting moments of remarkable insight into the connections between people and their pasts. The subject matter of Even the Dogs is perhaps even more grim than previous books, dealing with the lives of down-and-outs, sleeping rough and doing drugs to temporarily lift them out of their miserable existence, forging connections and friendships that are somewhat different from ones we would be familiar with. And then, in the bleak period between Christmas and New Year, there's a death that has an impact on a small group of them.

McGregor's deeply involving writing does nonetheless manage to find some beauty and poetry in this subject. A junkie preparing the vein on a companion for injection is compared to a soldier tenderly giving water from a flask to a dying companion, and there is a fine connection established between Ant, a former soldier in Afghanistan with a morphine addiction on account of injuries sustained in the war there now hooked on heroin, and the harvesting and transportation of heroin from the same part of the world. The writing is such that it also draws the reader fully into the limited horizons of such an existence, while at the same time expanding it out into the nature of the world that it takes place in.

McGregor is certainly one of the best writers in the UK, and the writing in Even the Dogs remains strong, with some superb observations, but this time around it all feels too much like a literary exercise, reminiscent of William Faulkner, the tone and treatment not that far removed from As I Lay Dying. Many would say McGregor's previous works have been literary exercises, but in this case it feels less original, uninspired and fails to touch on the human aspects of his characters - or perhaps the humanity in his subjects is just too deeply buried this time around.

The police discover Robert's decaying body on the floor of his flat. Robert's friends have been dropping by for a week, leaving after banging on the unanswered door. Robert's friend Danny finally breaks in and discovers the corpse before fleeing in a panic. Danny searches for someone to tell -- Robert's daughter Laura or his friend Mike -- but gives a greater priority to scoring drugs. As the novel progresses we meet other people in Robert's world and learn about his past. We also hear about the wartime experiences of two characters, one of whom became addicted after losing a leg. The novel ends with a coroner's inquest into the cause of Robert's death.

Even the Dogs is a story of wasted lives, of lives spent waiting: for drugs, for government checks, for the soup van, for group therapy to be over, for death. Most of the first part of the novel is told from Danny's point of view. The remainder is narrated by Robert's friends: unseen, ghostlike observers of his death's aftermath. Other than Robert, who drinks heavily but doesn't take drugs, the characters tend to blend together: each is driven by the same desire to get high, each is mired in a dreary existence.

The novel's narrative style is fractured, as are the characters. When Danny is narrating, paragraphs typically end with unfinished sentences. Yet portions of this novel are written in achingly beautiful prose. For that, I give the novel four stars, but I can't say that it was a complete pleasure to read. It's important for novels like this to be written, to reflect the dark and dismal realities of life, but dismal reading isn't fun reading. If you're looking for a story of redemption or personal growth, you won't find it here. If you don't want to be depressed by your reading, find a different book. Even the Dogs is a well-written chronicle of hopelessness, but it's a story that has been told many times before. This snapshot of life's forgotten, invisible people is better than most, but for all the power of McGregor's writing, I found myself reading it in small doses and was glad when it came to an end.