God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories

By Mitch Wieland

Ferrell Swan has fled the shambles of his life in Ohio for the vast and empty landscape of Idaho s high desert. Here he tries to escape his past and its failureseven to escape memory itself. He seeks... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870745530
• ISBN13: 9780870745539
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Southern Methodist Univ Pr
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A would-be hermit moves to Idaho but can't escape his past.

In Boise novelist Mitch Wieland's God's Dogs, Ferrell Swan, a sixty-year-old retired Ohio schoolteacher sets out to live alone in a cabin in the Idaho desert for many of the same reasons hermits have been taking to remote outposts for centuries: he seeks solitude, time to reflect in the wilderness, a chance to engage in the physical labor, and above all a break from his interpersonal failures. In heading to Idaho, Ferrell left behind three ex-wives, an angry stepson, and the many social obligations that come with teaching high school in the same community for decades. But the poor guy doesn't get much of a break: on the first page of God's Dogs, that ne'er-do-well stepson, Levon, shows up on Ferrell's doorstep, needing to heal in the wake of a bar fight. The two haven't spoken for three years, but the men and Levon's mother, Rilla, will talk a lot over the course of the book, hashing out what went wrong between them. Ferrell allows Levon to stay, but he's not exactly happy about it. "Somewhere along the way he's become a back-to-nature guy or a passive survivalist--he's not sure which," Wieland writes, "All he knows is he wanted to be left be after the divorce, and if being left alone meant doing for yourself, then so be it. He grew up working his grandfather's farm in northeast Ohio--it wasn't like he was some fed-up lawyer or business suit quitting his hundred thousand per to move to Idaho or Montana and talk to God. In his eyes he was simply returning to his roots for lack of any other damn thing to do." God's Dogs is a "novel in stories," and each chapter stands alone as a focused story, written in sharp prose with the pleasing density of language that good short stories have. All the chapters were published previously in literary magazines, and one chapter, "The Bones of Hagerman," was included in the Best of the West 2009 anthology. But readers probably wouldn't notice that the book is divided into stories if it weren't for that subtitle. The structure is smooth, proceeding chronologically, with variable gaps in time between where one story leaves off and the next picks up, but always fixing on a critical episode in the evolving relationships between Ferrell, Levon, and Rilla, a triangle that builds to its unsettling climax before the end of the book. Wieland works with elemental themes, the desert isolation of Ferrell's cabin in some ways serving as a stage set to show what goes on between one man and one woman when all other distractions are taken away. The ravishing Rilla shows up and Levon disappears again, leaving Ferrell and Rilla to make love, take long--often naked--walks in the desert, and discuss their lives. They observe and howl with coyotes that take on symbolic resonance throughout the book, and Ferrell is reluctant to shoot the coyotes even when they start to destroy his lambs. They witness a herd of mustangs that so captures Rilla's imagination that she determines to buy one at a BLM auction. But Levon didn'

A TIMELESS BOOK FOR A RESTLESS AGE

God's Dogs follows Ferrell Swan, a man in his early sixties who considers himself a failure in all the roles that matter: son, husband, father. He's retired early and headed off to the barren landscape of southern Idaho, a self-imposed exile meant to prevent him from screwing anything else up. For a while, he fills his days with hikes, naps, and half-hearted forays into shepherding. But it isn't long before his old life--in the form of ex-wife Rilla and stepson Levon--catches up with him. What's remarkable about this book is its relentless focus on the main character. With a small supporting cast and a plot as sparse and unadorned as the sagebrush desert, the book becomes a kind of meditation. Ultimately, Ferrell's dilemma boils down to a question of suffering alone versus suffering with others--which is more bearable, and which is nobler. Other reviewers have rightly discussed the book as an exploration of solitude. Certainly, its hermit-in-wilderness motif follows in the tradition of Walden, Desert Solitaire and others. However, I'd argue that Wieland's unsung genius is his rendering of family. While much of this novel could be set a century ago, the depiction of marriage and fatherhood feels up-to-the-second contemporary. Ferrell and Rilla are only able to love each other in divorce, and then only up to a point. Levon--legally an adult, biologically not Ferrell's son, technically a parent himself--needs more fathering now than ever. The questions the book raises on the family front seem to me the most interesting and the most urgent, questions that may well define our age: Which aspects of marriage should endure and which are outdated? Where do we draw the line between parent and fellow screw-up? How do obligations to kin dovetail with obligations to one's own happiness? Over the passionately carved and carefully polished course of God's Dogs, the love of family is revealed to be not so much unconditional as it is inescapable.

Stunningly well-written

I read this book because a friend of mine who works in a bookstore said it was the best novel he had read this year. Which means something, my friend reads a lot of books. I was immediately drawn into this novel and agree with my friend; this is one of the finest novels I've read in awhile. There is a sense of mystery throughout - mystery that evolves both from the landscape and the characters. As noted by Sarah Black, a previous reviewer, there is a strong sense of place in this book. It primarily takes place in the Idaho desert which can be a strange and lonely landscape. The characters match the land. Both characters and landscape are fully developed; I felt I was living inside this novel while I was reading it. The language is crisp and original and serves the story perfectly. Each of the 'chapters' in the book were individually published as short stories, but I'm not sure I would have noticed had I not been tipped off by the title: "God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories". The stories flow together seamlessly, separated by spaces in time that seem perfectly natural. This is an outstanding novel.

Brilliant and Brutal

I stayed up past midnight reading this book last night, and I wanted to talk about it- It is a novel in stories, and I think it's the first real novel in stories that is exactly that-- linear time line, same characters throughout, same point of view, which was soothing, but each story was absolutely short story structure. The novel, as well, had a climax 90% of the way through, and the whole structure was very effective. I loved the writing. Really strong graceful writing and sensory images, and about Idaho- I have unexpectedly fallen in love with Idaho since I moved here a couple of years ago, and the depiction of the Owyhees and the desert are wonderful and true. Many of the stories were about an ex husband and ex wife who are trying to make another go at it, and in some ways this was hard for me to relate to- I have never been married and never had a thirty year relationship with anyone. But it rang true for me- also the stories that were about the son- the troubled prodigal son, rang honest and true, and really touched me. I have been reading more regional literature- I have a fear it will disapear with the internet- and this is just about the most interesting and beautiful book I've read in awhile. The POV character is Ferrell Swan, sixties, gone off to the Idaho highdesert country to live alone. He's got some odd ball neighbors who are also on their own quests, and the embattled members of his family drift back to him, looking for something from him or from the stark land he chose to live on. This is as much about the brutal land and the lessons it holds as anything, and I love that land- the feelings and descriptions ring absolutely true.