Dogwalker : Stories (Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Doggy dreams
Review: Arthur Bradford deftly walks the ledge of the mundane, tipping but not quite falling into a marshy terrain normally reserved for dreams. I love his style of mixed realism and the surreal, all delivered with a safe and unaffected deadpan tone. Many weeks later, little oddities from these stories are still skulking around my mind.

Comparisons are difficult, but Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" and Denis Johnson's "Jesus' Son" come to mind.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome dash of originality
Review: DOGWALKER is a gently surreal book that is refreshingly different from anything other fiction being written right now. Bradford brings back some welcome influences -- Denis Johnson of course, but also Richard Brautigan, fanciful Pynchon, sedated Palahniuk -- and, like these writers, allows himself to be goofy in a rare, un-self-conscious way. It's too bad he's been lumped in with the Eggers & Co -- makes for some good blurbs on the back of the book (from some great & appropriate writers, i.e. Zadie Smith & DFW), but obscures the fact that something going on in these stories that's much more original and affecting than anyone else contributing to McSweeney's (Eggers included). Bradford has a distinct, original voice with a perfect, carefully cultivated flatness. Occasionally it begins to sound like it might be coming from a narrator a few bong hits past, um, sharp, and that in turn sometimes comes off as laziness on Bradford's part, but I think a word like lopiness is more appropriate -- it's not in a hurry and it's not showing off, but eventually this writing's going to take you somewhere you've never been in fiction. And if you have a chance to see Bradford read in person, take it.

Rating:
Summary: I want more!!!
Review: I bought Dogwalker. I opened Dogwalker. I read Dogwalker. I want more! The characters in Dogwalker are some of the best and oddest I've ever encountered. They make you laugh out loud and would probably make you cry if they were not so damned emotionless. It is the lack of emotion in the characters of Dogwalker that allow Bradford to write in his simple, unassuming, mutant-dogs-are-an-everyday-occurence style. For those who have been dissapointed with Bradford's simple prose, I think that it is the perfect style for his stories and characters. Beautiful prose and long flowing sentences would have buried the unique characters that he invented. Bradford is friends with and received glowing back-cover blurbs from Dave Eggers, David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace and Matthew Klam. For an added treat, check out Bradford's website...and listen to him perform "Rosalyn's Dog" or see him at a live reading.