The Day of the Dog

By Archie Weller

Book Overview

Shortlisted, Australian/Vogel Literary Award 1980 'Energy to burn, right up to the shattering climax.' Newcastle Herald Everyone is celebrating young Doug Dooligan s release from gaol. On his first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345348087
• ISBN13: 9780345348081
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Heritage and its Consequences

This is a novel about a character named Doug who was just released from prison and the stigma attached to him. It turns out that the consequences of his past is inextricably intertwined with his racial identity and the division in his Australian community between black and white. This novel moves very fast. The rapid pace of the narrative matches the speed with which Doug spirals down toward his inevitable doom. The tone is largely based on a quality of fatalism. For each moment of peace and release, Doug finds an intrusion that prevents him reaching a sense of fulfillment. At times, the author makes this too explicit. The relationships between the characters are what make the story so moving. There is such a strong sense of haphazardly drawn communities between Doug's friends and lovers, but which, for the moment, seem so tremendously real to the characters that you want to believe in their permanence. Doug is plagued with a heritage of divide between his helpful mother and his broken father. This is built in the context of a racially divided community. His parole officer doesn't have any hope or, seemingly, any desire to see Doug become successful. With all these conspiring influences, he cannot achieve any lasting stability. It becomes obvious that there is something unstable that has been built in him that leads him, almost unconsciously, toward his own destruction. This is a short, sad and poignant tale.