Customer Reviews

Old Dogs and Children: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A good story with great characters is the best reading experience, in my opinion. That's why I love the literature of the South. I've read all of Robert Inman's books recently -- they all have that great storytelling quality that all great Southern novels share. Old Dogs and Children is a wonderful, hopeful and heartbreaking book about the choices we make and the way they affect us and the people around is. It's about the importance of place -- and how leaving it or remaining in it is both a joy and a sacrifice. Bright Birdsong, like all the other characters in the novel, makes choices -- often with bad results, and sometimes with good ones. Robert Inman is one of those writers who, once you discover him, you read all his books voraciously, and are then angry at yourself for finishing them all so quickly. I hope he writes more!

Bob Inman's novel Old Dogs and Children is a wonderful story and trip to another place. Mr. Inman in his traditionally breath- taking writing style, has the ability to show people not as bad or good, but as real- full of faults, dreams, and regrets. I loved every character and after closing the book still wonder how they are doing This is the mark of a truly great writer, this is the mark of Bob Inman. As the editor and creator of the online family magazine Families-First I look for excellent books like Mr. Inman's to offer to my online community. His writing is simply a joy to read. I always learn something when reading his stories, and feel richer in the afterglow of his novels.

This is one of those books that takes a place for itself in the heart. I find myself recommending it to friends even years after having read it, when they ask what my favorite books are. The reader is so drawn into the story that it becomes a genuine experience. This is a book with depth, heart and humor. Most importantly, it makes us cherish our own passing days with a little more appreciation for the beauty and value in everyday things, be they old dogs, children or the myriad details that make a life. I applaud the author, Robert Inman for this enchanting gem.

This is one that you do not want it end....wonderful characters and storyline....I highly recommend this book..I hope there is a continuation of this one.....

I found Inman's book to be a bittersweet look at growing older and how it is never too late to change. Bright Birdsong touched me deeply with her fears and sometimes her lack of courage made me seethe with anger. However this is a novel of redemption and in the end just like Gladys the dog, Bright Birdsong also comes out from under the porch and into the light.

I'm in love with the South and this book really gave one a feel for the every day life..... It was easy to empathize with Trout and his problems.

This novel started really slow to me. I put it down after the first chapter and it took several months to pick it back up. Once I became engrossed the story took off. The author dida good job of transitioning from past to present and weaving the two stories together. The story was pleasurable to read for the most part, but then at the end I felt rushed. The author left a few open ends that I would have liked to seen tied up.

One reviewer has written here that the book developed too slowly. That is part of the greatness of this book. Robert Inman takes you intimately into the life of Bright Birdsong. You live with generations of this family. He develops the character of Bright and her parents, her husband, her children and her friends and neighbors. You live with these people. You breath with them. You cry with them. You rejoice with them. You mourn with them. That cannot be developed quickly and one should not want it to. I found myself wanting this book to be 900 pages. I could not wait to learn more of Bright and her family and of her town. And in reading of Bright, you are not only reading of the south, you are also reading of the history of the south. You are reading of the relationship of southern people to the land, the woods and to the rivers. You are reading of the relationships of whites and blacks and how those relationships changed over the course of 70 odd years and how they changed not much at all in some minds. Inman does a great job of treating the sociological ills of this time and place and perhaps he does not even intend to. There are few people who weave a story as well as Inman and perhaps he is just telling a story that he knows so well and in doing so we learn of the problems of this time and place as well as the depth of feelings the characters have for the people and perhaps more for the place. Some characters feel as though they are out of place, that they can never be of the place. Some characters are so of the place that they cannot accept any change. All in all a wonderful story, but also a wonderful anthology of what life in the South was like for much of the 20th Century. A must read.

Not great literature, but still, an enjoyable read for a long airplane ride. There's lots of that old Southern mystique here, well-developed characters with all their warts and contradictions, good descriptions of places, events, and people. In addition, Inman really captures the atmosphere and the mythical ideal, if not the reality, of American small town life.

An old woman has withdrawn from involvement in her town's daily doings, and finds new meaning for her life in that eternal issue of the South - a matter of racial justice. The problem she resolves is not completely credible, and the action she takes is surprisingly uninspired, yet it's just conceivable that this lack of grandeur fits with the town and the folks in question.