Customer Reviews

Nose Down, Eyes Up: A Novel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Merrill Markoe is one of my favorite authors, so I make it a point to buy all of her books, read them and recommend them to friends. Do you ever wonder what dogs are actually thinking? Well, as the owner of 2 rescued dogs, I often wish I could read their minds. Reading Nose Down, Eyes Up and her previous novel, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, may be the closest I'll ever get to reading my dogs' minds. Actually, I'm sure Merrill's dialogue is way funnier than anything my dogs could come up with. And she weaves this creative doggie dialogue into a fiction story that held my attention from the first page to the last.

When Gil stumbles upon his alpha dachshund Jimmy lecturing the neighborhood dogs on canine manipulation techniques, his life is profoundly changed. That is, if you consider Gil's first instinct to exploit his newfound knowledge by starting a pet blog to kick-off the sale of silk-screened T-shirts a profound revelation. The only redeeming quality about 47-year-old, bitterly divorced, layabout Gil is that he understands his dogs far better than the women in his life. If not for the laugh-out-loud dialogue between Gil and his four dogs, Jimmy, Cheney, Fruity, and Dinky, this book would possess little redeeming value.

As an animal lover and a dog owner, I found the first section of the book containing the interaction between Gil and his dogs both heartwarming and hilarious. I laughed out loud during several moments. But then, illustrating a dog's personality is going to be humorous no matter how you write it. However, despite the truly enjoyable first part of the book, including such memorable pearls of canine wisdom as "Is it pee inside, poo inside?" and "Everything can be eaten", the story suffers from an unfortunate overload of dislikable, shallow, greedy, and selfish cast of human characters that sour the latter plot, which focuses more heavily on human than canine antics--predictably Gil's trouble with women.

Drama starts when Gil accidentally runs into his sexy ex-wife at a convenient store while collecting a six-pack for beer-thirty--a longtime tradition for the lately-out-of-work, blue-collar handyman who conveniently lives in the empty summerhouse of rich retirees in exchange for household maintenance. Startled by the encounter with the woman who cleaned out his bank account during their divorce five years ago, Gil succumbs to Eden's overly enthusiastic greeting by giving her his phone number.

When Gil's cunning canine manipulator Jimmy discovers the shocking family secret that Gil is not his biological father, his traumatized reaction (sprinkled with a heavy dose of "nose down, eyes up") persuades a reluctant Gil to call his ex-wife and owner of Jimmy's mother Gypsy to facilitate a reunion between mother and son. Meanwhile, his landlords call unexpectedly to announce their return to the summerhouse, which forces Gil to vacate the premises and move in--grudgingly--with his well-intentioned albeit clueless "animal communicator" girlfriend Sara, whose recent desire to deepen their relationship is rubbing commitment-phobic Gil the wrong way.

Predictably, Gil begins an affair with his vain and horny ex-wife Eden under her rich husband's nose after accepting Eden's carpentry job offer to fix-up the guest house. Tack on the undercover P.I. Eden's husband has hired to spy on her who blackmails Gil, and his troubles are only beginning. Meanwhile, friction with his suspicious girlfriend Sara exacerbates Gil's stress over the affair, which he spends the majority of the novel complaining about. In fact, a large extent of Gil's dialogue had a tendency toward crudeness, which grows tiresome to read. Readers who don't enjoy frank discussions of sex or profanity may find themselves horrified by some of the saltier scenes Gil details while en flagrante delicto with Eden or Sara. When Gil moves into the guest house is about the time when the story shifts focus and the dogs take a backseat to Gil's screwed-up love life after Jimmy decides he prefers the company of his canine family to Gil. (No big surprise there.)

It was difficult to get through the second half of the story once the dogs lost the limelight and the humor alternated from doggie frolic to sexual shenanigans, but the ending is, if not the most desirable, at least realistic. Gil's soujourn to visit his mother as a way of avoiding Sara seemed an unnecessary diversion from the main story to illustrate Gil's contemptible personality as he complains about his family, particularly his mother, and picks up a sexy high-school classmate for a one-night-stand. Returning home at the onset of the California wildfires separates Gil from Jimmy when he can't get to the guest house to rescue him.

I hesitate to recommend this book because overall, it really isn't a very good story. Yes, parts of it are funny, but the overly long detour from Gil's interaction with his dogs to Gil's deplorable behavior as he selfishly manipulates the women in his life cannot maintain the same vein of light-hearted humor. Perhaps the author intended to compare human vs. canine manipulation by shifting the focus of the story, but the contrast does not make for very gratifying reading.

That being said, if you're an animal lover and don't mind stories with contemptible characters committing depressing acts of betrayal merely as a literary device for situational humor, then you will probably enjoy this story. It IS funny, at least the first half, though I doubt I will buy another book by this author given the cynical depiction of human interpersonal relationships that is such a big focus in the story.

Bottom line: there are better dog books out there.

Merrill Markoe is consistently hilarious, and her latest doesn't disappoint. I couldn't put it down--it took me two days to read, tops--and I was still laughing hours after I turned the last page. The dog dialogue is particularly spot-on; as a dog owner, myself, I recognized everything the dogs said to be "true." It matched their behavior to a "T"! Highly recommend.

This book arrived in excellent condition from the seller. Such a good, humorous, loving side of life from how our dogs must view life with their humans! A really good book that has left me wondering just what goes on inside my little buddy's mind.. if only he could talk! Would highly recommend this book for anyone who is a pet parent (and you would likely enjoy even if not one!) :o)

This book is for anyone who loves dogs, has a dog, talks their dogs and appreciates their dogs. If you ever wonder what your dog is thinking, this is the book for you!

I thought that this would be a wonderful story about Jimmy, an alpha dog in a household of four dogs, realizing that his human guardian isn't his birth-father after all, and then expressing his desire to meet his birth family. Yes, that's part of it, but I really should've read between the lines in the summary: "At forty-seven, Gil [the dogs' human guardian] is the world's oldest twenty-two year old..." This hint, and a houseful of four "guys" and a "girl" (one of the four dogs is female) should've led me to expect the "fraternity house" behavior in this book. But I didn't expect the bad behavior to be that bad or that frequent.

This could have been a wonderful, beautiful, story had there been less foul language, drinking (and constant exclamations of "Beer Thirty!"), sexuality, and sexual/bathroom references (The little female dog in the household can't seem to understand to ask to go outside when she needs to.). Also, Gil's ex-wife seems to be the "stock" ex-wife -- a "Barbie-doll" beauty, greedy, and thinking only of herself.

I can see the potential for Markoe to write something better, but "Noses Down" is not the one.

I loved the first book and this one is pretty good too. But geez, are all the foul expletives necessary? I'm not prude by any means but the overuse of the f* and c* words are just unnecessary and take away from the pleasure of relaxing reading.

Well, this was cute... but not as cute as _Walking in Circles Before Lying Down_, but I suppose there are only so many things that you can pass on as cute and interesting tid-bits from dogs. Although, honestly, it was the narrator that spoiled the book for me. He wasn't very sympathetic... and neither was the main dog, Jimmy. I don't know... it was just sort of a disappointment after looking forward to reading it. I really loved WICBLD. Maybe if the narrator had been a woman... though, I did like how modern the book was, with mentions of Facebook, MySpace and I Can Haz Cheezburger...

This was one of the funniest dog stories I ever heard on CD. I could not stop smiling and laughing. I wish Amazon would have more dog stories on CD. I pass them around to all my dog owner friends.
The only problem with the story is the belabored descriptions of the dog owners sexual exploits, with his sometimes on and off girlfriends, which as written and described, were high schoolish. It, the sex, was belabored, boring, and added nothing to his humorous relationship with his dogs.

This book was just plain awful. I love dogs and reading all sorts of books about dogs (fiction & non).... but I thought this book was extremely hard to get through. The characters were all super annoying especially the main character Gil. Even the dog conversations, which could've been done in a cute & clever way, were agonizing. There were several parts that were trying much too hard to be funny. The swearing really took away from it... I like to swear as much as the next person but come on... obviously the author is lacking in vocabulary. Oh and it got to where I cringed every time it said 'beer-thirty'... it wasn't really even that funny the first time... saying it 29 more times sure didn't help. I only finished reading it because I was traveling and had nothing else to read. Just plain painful from the very beginning... not at all what I expected. Boo.