The second-person narrative, in which the dog becomes “you”, is a clever device, enabling Baume to “show not tell” as Ray lets One Eye into his life, showing him everything from his house to memories of his late father. Ray explains to One Eye: “You have to learn to fathom your way through a world of which you are frightened.” Fear curdles through this story, which skilfully builds suspense as it discloses their painful pasts. “I wish you could understand when I read to you,” he tells his dog.) The man and dog are both outsiders in a claustrophobic coastal community and both are weighed down by fear and sadness.įifty-seven-year-old loner Ray addresses his narrative directly to the dog he discovered advertised in a window of a jumble shop, a one-eyed terrier that becomes his sole companion and to whom he bares his soul. (“I longed to be left to my books,” he reminisces. This fine debut novel, originally published by the independent Irish publisher Tramp Press, now in a Heinemann paperback edition, and longlisted for this year’s Guardian first book award, is a fascinating portrait of the friendship a man develops with his dog and the companionship he also finds in books. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read,” observed Groucho Marx. “O utside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.
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