The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary

The many devotees of Rebecca Brown's compressed, lyrical prose will find The Dogs her most accomplished piece of fiction yet--a taut, beautifully sustained meditation on power, savagery, and piercing self-knowledge. Whether drawing on fairy tales, medieval Christian allegories, or the conceit of the bestiary (her precursors are Robert Coover, Angela Carter, and other wordsmiths of the fantastic), Brown manages to turn a wealth of allusions and images to her own grim purposes. Do a pack of cruel, increasingly human Dobermans inhabit the narrator's modest studio apartment, forcing her to do their bidding? And, if so, why doesn't she leave? What has happened to her self-esteem--or, in fact, to herself, her fragile body, with its pale, hairless paws, its two measly teats (so annoying, so ridiculous to the dogs), its useless teeth? A breakthrough novel for Brown that should attract--and disturb--a wide readership. --Regina Marler