The debut collection of an O. Henry Award- winning short-story writer, Dogwalker assembles its cast from society's misfits: the disabled and the blind, the hapless and the troubled, and all species of mutants--including a giant slug that almost breaks up a marriage, a preponderance of three-legged dogs, and a family of circus freaks who look remarkably like cats. Here, too, are hexes, voodoo, refrigerated dead puppies, and an unforgettable game involving a chainsaw. The stories in Dogwalker are narrated with surreal tranquility, with a pronounced lack of amazement at life's vicissitudes and an affable acceptance of its strangest circumstances.
With a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and a sensibility as unique as his subjects, Arthur Bradford peels back a surface layer of depravity and violence to reveal a world of surprising gentleness, compassion, and innocence. In these twelve strikingly provocative and hilarious stories, he emerges as an utterly original new voice in contemporary fiction.
Booklist
Bradford... makes an assured debut with this mordantly funny collection of stories. Focusing on disenfranchised characters living on the fringes of society, Bradford yields hilarious results, although never at the expense of his characters.
Library Journal
Using first-person narrative throughout, Bradford makes the bizarre seem plausible, but both characters and stories can be troubling and upsetting.
Publishers Weekly
Bradford's bizarre, species-crossing debut collection of 12 stories hits the mark with its singular characters and odd scenarios, its eccentricities blissfully unforced.
Dave Eggers
[Bradford's] stories remain in your head, much like, say, a severed torso might remain under the tracks of a train.... How can stories such as these be, still, so funny, so full of something like joy? These are questions we may never, ever answer. If you don't like Arthur's stories you are not my friend.
Powered by a spare, ruminative prose style that recalls the best of Denis
Johnson and Thom Jones, Controlled Burn is an unforgettable debut.
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Dave Eggers
