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A Novel
by C. Mallon
Book Reviewed by:A singular, devastating debut novel, Dogs traces the fallout of one catastrophic night in the lives of five high school wrestlers, asking what can survive in the blast radius of latent trauma and violence.
As night falls on the city of Carbon, Hal and his friends are cruising the backroads in their terrible car. From the wrestling gym to the gas station, from his mom's kitchen to the mall parking lot, Hal bears quiet witness to the beauty and the horror he perceives in the slow, lonely world of his hometown.
Withdrawn and reticent, Hal is haunted by the specter of violence. Safety and comfort are hard won in Carbon, a town dogged by stories of desperation and brutality, and his own home is a dark vault of troubled and unspoken memory. Hal's greatest peace is found in the company of his dearest friend, Cody John, whose true compassion offers him a window to a better life.
Over the course of a single night, a catastrophic chain of events is set into motion. Its devastating conclusion will explode the fragile balance that once kept the boys together. Unflinching, resolute and beautifully rendered, Dogs is a stunning exploration of trauma, real love, and the limit of our ability to reach one another.
Our narrator throughout Dogs is Hal, a quiet, sensitive, and contemplative teenager. Across a single night, he drives through his rural US hometown with his friends from the high school wrestling team, Cody John, Zachary, Dylan, and Carter. Hal is a skillfully realized character, and very much the beating heart of the novel. Flawed, complex, and utterly human, he is full of contradictions: gentle and caring yet simmering with latent violence and rage. These contradictions are explored most keenly in his relationship with Cody John. Much goes unspoken—such as Hal's inability to face his true self—but there is undeniable chemistry and affection between the two. Painfully real, Dogs is a bleak gut-punch of a novel that lays bare the true devastation of trauma and depression...continued
Full Review
(768 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
Daniel Magariel, author of One of the Boys
A tour de force, both heartful and heartbreaking, C. Mallon's Dogs is a raw, beautiful excavation of the wounds blown open by the betrayal of life's most sacred relationships. Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead
C. Mallon's work is equal parts scouring and clarifying, the kind of writing that exposes the wounds in order to irrigate them. Her characters are constitutionally unable to overlook the dirt and mess and pain of the world, yet haunted by the instinct that everything might have been some other way—on another planet, maybe, or in another life. Impairment, here, is a form of passion; transgression, a form of sanctitude.In C. Mallon's debut novel Dogs, we follow a group of young people who feel lost and forgotten, chasing artificial highs through drug and alcohol abuse. Chief among them is Hal, whose internalized childhood trauma and identity struggles have led to major issues with depression and self-harm. Though the exact timeframe of the novel is not stated, pop culture references and context clues imply events are taking place around the early 1990s. Societal stigma at the time surrounding mental health and sexuality explains Hal's reluctance to address many of his issues directly. Much of his pain goes unspoken until he reaches a devastating and destructive breaking point, highlighting the importance of seeking help.
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