Going to the Dogs

by Russell McRae

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140101659
• ISBN13: 9780140101652
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A dark, raw, alive, brilliant description of teenage life.

Although slightly dated by its early 1980s time frame, this is perhaps the best book I've ever read about 'coming of age' - especially for its total lack of comfortable BS. It takes place in a northern Canadian town, but could have been easily transferred to any small town of recent American history. Superficially it is about a young man, his twisted family, his passage into adulthood and his attempts to discover what his life is about. But it is also a highly didactic, angry novel. It savagely destroys the cozy view that disaffected teenagers are 'rebels without a cause', whiners with no real complaints. It reminds us that to be a teenager (which this reviewer is not) is to see the world with open eyes for the first time - and the picture is dark indeed. It depicts school as a brutal conformity factory where what little power, freedom, joy, and dignity young people have is taken away from them at every opportunity, and adulthood as a slow surrender to similarly petty and evil power structures. It contains no fantasies of perfect first loves, only of people struggling to define themselves and to make a place for themselves in an unkind world. It contains no revenge fantasies such as were acted out recently in Littleton, merely conveying the frustration of powerlessness with perfect accuracy. It is not for the faint of heart. This is not the description of an enjoyable or readable book, but GOING TO THE DOGS is an almost compulsively readable book - it is helped in this respect by McRae's ability to find life's hidden, secret beauty amidst ugliness, and by his very dark humor. This book will probably be hard to find, but if any readers are lucky enough to find it, it comes highly recommended.