Dogwalker: Stories

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.

I'm pretty sure that Tom Waits mated with a book and the result is Arthur Bradford. If I told you that the characters in Dogwalker live on the same block as The Eyeball Kid and Table Top Joe, and if you understood that, you should not only have read this book by now - you should be actively refusing to loan it out to relatives and friends without a security deposit. Each chapter in Dogwalker reads like the discovery of a new and fascinating insect; if that isn't praise, what is?

This is a wonderul collection of stories. David Foster Wallace hits the nail on the head when he says that reading Bradford is like having lunch with the part of you that dreams at night. Strange things occur and exceedingly pleasant, non-neurotic first-person narrators react as you would in a dream: they note the odd situations they find themselves in but then move on (with wonderful results). It's like being able to slow your dreams down--not to mention remember them--and savor all the strange details. The writing is also blissfully clean. I noticed one of the comments above mentioned Bradford's sideburns. I saw a reading and let me tell you: his gums are not to be believed (let's pray he keeps his teeth). See a reading if you can, and enjoy the book, it's well worth a read.

Whoa. I've been awaiting this collection for a while, having been tracking down individual stories for years and years. I mean, the many people of the polis have been aware of and devastated by catface and Alan Matthews for so long; it's just too much; but here we get new people to love and fear. Roslyn. Bill McQuill. Where does this all come from? It is beyond entertainment, it will bring new people into libraries and bookstores, it is really what we need, to read with smiles on our faces, coughing out laughter onto our shirtfronts. Some doubt Arthur's sideburns, and wonder if he's let himself go to seed; this is just not true. Buy it; read it; it'll make you happy.

Excellent collection of stories. Very funny and, at times, sad.