The Dog Star

by Donald Windham

Fifty years after its original publication in 1950, "The Dog Star", one of the classics of Southern literature, is restored to print. The story of 15-year-old Blackie Pride, "The Dog Star" chronicles... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1892514095
• ISBN13: 9781892514097
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Hill Street Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

A must read of American Literature

Donald Windham's fame has been elusive over the past half century in comparison to his legendary buddies: Tennessee William, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Carson McCullers et al. But that doesn't make him any less of an artist. THE DOG STAR is dark and forboding. Written in amazing eloquence the novel has aquired a nostalgic flavor but in many ways forshadows the current problems of today's teens. So The Dog Star should also appeal to the Dawson's Creek crowd. One day, it will be required reading and Windham's hero will stand along side other American teen anti-heros such as Holden Caufield and Huck Finn and Windham himself will gain the respect and noteriety he so deserves. Donald Windham is one of the great unsung masters of twentieth century American Literature.

Lost Classic

This is a wonderful book, too long out of print. Blackie is a complex, dark character who is like so many young people today. Windham's style, at least as compelling as his friends and colleagues Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, is dense and well crafted. This is a lost classic.

Intricate and emotional

I am a fan of Donald Windham and have been for the past ten years. I feel he is one of the most important writers of the century and has never enjoyed the wide audience he so much deserves. I have always thought his Atlanta memoir, EMBLEMS OF CONDUCT, to be one of the best I've ever read. THE DOG STAR brilliantly covers much of the same terrain in many ways, but is fiction. Depression-era Atlanta is certainly not the Atlanta of today, but the themes that run through the pages of THE DOG STAR are timeless and should be read by everyone seriously interested in Southern literature.

The Dog Star is a brilliantly written, neglected classic.

The Dog Star is a marvelous, beautifully-written novel about a boy named Blackie Pride growing up in 1930's Atlanta. Predating most of the major concerns of Catcher in the Rye by a year, this is a underrated minor masterpiece of American fiction.

Sad, but a wonderful novel

The opening line, "The dog star rose with the sun and the day was hot as soon as it was light," lets you know that Windham is a writer who loves words and language. This is a book filled with treasures, descriptions that will stay with you. While it is hard to imagine that the mind-ramblings and tribulations of a 15-year-old Atlanta juvenile delinquent in the 1930s are relevant to most readers, many of Blackie Pride's emotions resonated for me. Windham has painted a portrait that is evocative and touching. and pretty scary, without preaching or telling the reader what to think. Maybe I was particularly touched by this novel because we all are trying so hard now to understand young people, especially those who do not "fit in."