Wild Dogs : A Novel [Paperback]

Helen Humphreys (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited (2005)
• ISBN-10: 000639180X
• ISBN-13: 978-0006391807
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,245,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must read, June 9, 2005

By 

Christina "Christina" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Dogs: A Novel (Hardcover)

I dont even know where to begin with this book. I could not put it down after i started it. Helen Humphreys presents a captivating novel about the two tragedies in life. The tragedy of gaining your hearts desire, and the tragedy of losing it. This book will compel you as you read the story of 7 people that im sure many of us can relate to as they encounter love and loss in their life.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Small novel that resonates for a long time ..., July 6, 2007

By 

C. Schroeder (Geneva, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wild Dogs: A Novel (Paperback)

This is one of the better novels I've read. The prose is so spare but each word tacitly cuts like a knife through layers of unecessary thoughts to those truly at the core of what it is to love, lose love and suffer grief. I've read 100s of books and none capture the feelings quite like Helen Humphreys can. The amazing thing too is this is done from various perspectives and vastly different people. In a few short pages, I felt I really understood each of these characters and truly cared what happened to them. In less skilful hands this would be almost an absurd story, but it is so believable, and often sad. But there is some hope in there too, about unlikely people helping each other out. It's also a surpringly good glimpse at how little we know about domestic dogs; and how close in behavior they may be to wild. Fascinating. I would give this quiet, vastly underrated novel 10 stars if I could. Be warned though, its images, thoughts and feelings stick with you well after you finish the book. It may even question how you look at love and what it does to a person.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Love is like... wild dogs. If it hunts you down, it will not let you go.", June 10, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wild Dogs: A Novel (Hardcover)

Wild Dogs is a tale of belonging, yearning and rejection, a group of people joined in a hopeless quest to recover their lost dogs, connected by that hope in a manner that lends urgency to their nightly vigil at the edge of the woods. The wild dogs symbolize impermanence, the futility of ownership, though many are fooled into believing otherwise.

Alice is lonely, vulnerable; it is through her perspective that we view the others, the enigmatic lover she enjoys for so brief a time, relinquished almost as soon as the words are spoken; the emotionally damaged painter, Malcolm, who offers Alice a temporary home; the stray boy, Jamie, battling the demons of adolescence and unhappiness at home with youthful bravado; and the helpless Lily, her innocence a terrible trap that will betray her. Time is suspended for these weeks of waiting and watching; but reality intrudes, breaking the fragile ties of friendships built on mutual need.

Alice quickly realizes the attraction between these strangers, the rebellious boy, the brain-damaged young woman, the confused artist and the research biologist: they are all afraid of the people who have the power to send their dogs into the void. It is only natural to navigate toward shared comfort, to pair up together: "Because we had all suffered the same loss, we bonded with an immediacy that I now realize was premature and foolish." Although Alice is the primary focus of the novel, the others are equally fraught with self-doubt, empathizing with the wild dogs that once were their pets, sensing some of this errant wildness in themselves. Alice falls hopelessly in love with the research biologist, fashioning a romance that may not be all that she hopes for, that leaves her desolate once more: "I lay down with dying in my bones. I lay down under the sweet, anxious sorrow of you."

Fate intervenes, shattering the bonds these strangers have forged. Relinquishing their dreams of recovery, all are changed by the actions that violate the imperturbability of the wilderness. The other characters complete this strange scenario, each leaving an imprint upon a short season of life at the edge of the woods; yet it is Alice who is most changed, embracing the future, her spirit expanded: "The heart is a wild and fugitive creature. The heart is a dog who comes home." Luan Gaines/2006.