★★★☆☆
A post-apocalyptic story set in a world ravaged by a catastrophic flu pandemic, The Dog Stars follows Hig, a survivor living in a small, remote airplane hangar with Jasper, his loyal dog, and Bangley, a gruff, violent man he befriends. After hearing a voice on the radio of his 1956 Cessna and enduring a fresh tragedy, Hig takes off to discover what exists beyond his current meager reality.
Like many of Heller’s other works, his prose is choppy and clipped, particularly in scenes requiring dialogue. One example of Heller’s grammatically suspect staccato occurs early in the novel when Hig ponders the concept of home: “Home. Meager as it is. Nothing to lose as I have. Nothing is something somehow.”
While I have come to expect this style from Heller, the choppiness seemed more prominent in The Dog Stars and bothered me more than in some of my previous reads of his. I understand that the sparse writing technique was meant to convey Hig’s desolate existence, but it gave him a caveman-like quality that made it difficult for me to connect.
“Why don’t we have a word for the utterance between laughing and crying?”
Peter Heller, The Dog Stars
Heller sprinkles his trademark reflections on fishing and the peacefulness that can be found in nature among the broken sentences. He also again compares women’s breasts to fruit—this time apples, as opposed to the grapefruit analogy that appeared in The Painter.
After experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, it was eerie to read about the post-pandemic world Heller imagined when this book was published more than twenty years ago. For a novel that paints a dim view of humanity, it culminates with a surprising dose of hope. Fear, grief, and loss are well-explored themes, as is the enduring desire for human connection.
I’m glad I read this one because it is one of Heller’s most critically acclaimed novels. However, despite its acclaim, it does not stand among my favorites by Heller. It wandered more than I prefer, and its themes of surviving loss and seeking connection after devastation were covered in a more relatable way in some of his other works, such as The Painter and Burn.
Fans of post-apocalyptic novels like Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel will enjoy this one.
My reviews of The Painter and Celine.