Walking the Dog: And Other Stories [Hardcover]

Bernard MacLaverty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995

A new collection of vivid, lucid stories from an accomplished Irish writer takes its title from the story of a Belfast man who is kidnapped at gunpoint by the IRA when he is out walking his dog.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Again demonstrating his sure ear for ordinary speech, Irish writer MacLaverty (Cal) constructs his stories around conversations, adroitly creating eloquent characterizations and compelling drama. Some of the dialogue is exhanged in the uneventful context of daily life, such as an understated tea-time conflict between an adolescent and his pious grandparents ("Compensations") or a middle-aged couple's holiday examination of their static relationship ("At the Beach"). Other stories are witness to moments in longer, more significant events: neighbors reflecting the Catholic-Protestant conflict ("The Wake House"); a mother and daughter trying to pass a rainy afternoon during the latter's long illness ("In Bed"); a series of boozy hospital visits that sum up a friendship ("Just Visiting"). Two tension-packed stories are standouts. In "Silent Retreat," a Catholic schoolboy and a Protestant guard engage in theological discussions where the school's playing fields bump up against the walls of a prison. In the title story, a man kidnapped by terrorists while walking his dog finds his identity-and life-hinging on his correct pronunciation of the alphabet. Under the tone-perfect slang and the inflection of small talk are the visible outlines of these characters' buried lives, their moving connections and dislocations. Always one to deliver the unexpected, MacLaverty also intrudes his alter ego, referred to as "your man," whose droll observations eerily animate the 10 short vignettes that alternate with the nine stories in this provocative collection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

MacLaverty portrays an unsettling world in this finely drawn collection of nine stories. A man walking his dog is snatched by IRA killers, then released because he does not merit murdering. A married couple vacationing at the beach confront the ennui of middle age amid whiskey, All-Bran, and streaming ants. A bitter divorcee struggles against her own selfishness to reach her alienated daughter. An English teacher watches his friend die of cancer. With his subtle style and an eye for detail, MacLaverty turns these and other commonplaces of Irish life into transcendent events that illuminate his characters' lives in new ways. A consummate storyteller, he reveals the turbulence beneath the deceptive stillness of life and shows how it consciously, or subconsciously, influences even the smallest of decisions. Highly recommended.?Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 2nd edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393037584
• ISBN-13: 978-0393037586
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,950,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars highly recommended, March 11, 2002

By 

L. Frascella (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking the Dog: And Other Stories (Paperback)

Highly recommended story collection for anyone who likes spare, richly suggestive prose in the Carver-Hemingway-early McEwan vein. MacLaverty tells deeply evocative stories of ordinary people without any literary tricks or cheap bendings toward genre. He helps you understand what daily life is like in Ireland while thankfully avoiding Irish kitsch. In these empathetic stories, he creates characters whose fear, anger, doubt and general misgivings about life seldom cancel out caring for others. I'm new to MacLaverty having also just read his short(and also extraordinary)novel Lamb. I plan to read all his work.