Teeth of the Dog

This novel has much to recommend it. I loved the language and the story. Most contemporary fiction leaves me bored and I've taken to not finishing most of the books I start. But Teeth of the Dog was different. I couldn't put it down, and even though I finished it over a week ago, I still think about it. It's been a very long time since a novel did that for me.

This book is a knockout. The story is about coming to terms with the death of someone you love, and I must say, having experienced grief myself, Jill Ciment got it exactly right. She writes about grief in all its permutations, the anger, the sadness, and the selfishness. I also loved the story, fast paced and exciting and very funny at times. Setting it on the South Seas Island of Vanuu, only adds to the feelings of displacement and loss.

Teeth of the Dog is an incredible collage of social commentary and whalloping emotional content. It reads like a skillful thriller. You become so totally absorbed by the characters that you begin plotting what you would do in their situations, wanting to warn them to be a tad more reasonable or a little less passionate. What's especially well defined is the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. Ciment's watertight prose and sensual detail drops the reader in such a vivid place, that you may check your passport to see if it's stamped "Vanduu." With a bleak humor, she shows how our American pop culture and imperialism have wreaked havoc on the unsuspecting innocent in third world counties. In Teeth of the Dog, our collective behavior has come back to bite us in the butt. I loved the character of Finster...he had perfect sleaze-appeal, the dark Adam of paradise. I also adored Ciment's other book, Half a Life, and find myself giving her books as gifts frequently. You'll want to turn everyone you know on to Jill Ciment! Warming: if you loan this book out you probably won't get it back.

If you crave beautiful writing, intense emotion, and nail biting suspense, you'll want to check out Teeth of the Dog. The story builds slowly, hypnotically, then suddenly you find yourself as swept up in the novel's dramatic events as the characters themselves. I've been to many third world hellholes and she got it just right. It was also very interesting to read this sort of story from a women's point of view. I think Jill Ciment's on to something new. Teeth of the Dog is both a thriller and a literary novel, the best of both worlds.

I stayed up all night reading this novel, I couldn't put it down. The writing was so beautiful, the story really gripping, and very sad, too. The island she describes was weird and awesome. If you like Graham Greene, you'll love this book!