The Dogs of Winter Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00GG4EA64 | Format: PDF
The Dogs of Winter Description
Jack Fletcher is hired to take pictures of a dangerous, premier mysto surf spot off the Pacific Northwest. But disaster soon strikes when an Indian boy drowns - and the men from his reservation seek vengeance.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 10 hours and 55 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Audible, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: November 4, 2013
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00GG4EA64
This is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. The title is not so great. "Dogs of Winter" sounds like a straight-to-video action flick starring Charlie Sheen.
Then you read the back cover copy.
It's about a mystical cove in California. A place surfers talk about in hushed tones. The Devil's Hoof, home to the last great wave. Nobody has ever found it, but many have searched in vain. Until now. When I read that, I thought: okay - it's a surfer version of that over-rated Alex Garland book, "The Beach".
A group made up of two young surfers, a grizzled old photographer, a legendary surfer and a young kid find the cove and decide to make something of it, which riles the local Indian population somewhat. When the kid vanishes beneath one of the great waves, the local Indian population decide to retaliate: the legendary surfer's half-mad wife is abducted and the young surfer, the old photographer and the legendary surfer disappear into the woods roundabout. At which point, it's a case of Alex Garland's "The Beach" meets - what? "Straw Dogs"? "Deliverance"?
I'll tell you. When I started reading I thought: this is a book without surprises.
I only started reading because of a conversation with a friend. We were talking about end-of-year polls, how you can often hear about books and music that passed you by, how you can often pick up a treat that otherwise you might have missed. He told me that he spotted "Dogs of Winter" in one such poll two or more years ago. He told me I should read it and - you know, you feel kind of obligated after that, right?
Recommendation notwithstanding, I approached this book like I'd approach a snake with it's back up.I'll tell you - I'll hold my hands up - I was wrong.
Atmosphere is king in Nunn's forth novel, an oddly assembled and arranged rambling semi-thriller about the quest to find a legendary secret surfing spot on the far northern California coast. The story treads much of the same turf as Alex Garland's The Beach, James Dickey's Deliverance, and Conrad's Heart of Darkness-but pales in comparison to all of them (yes, even The Beach). We meet a rapidly aging down-and-out surfing photographer who gets one last chance: he's to accompany two young pro surf hotshots as they meet up with a former legend who claims to know where the secret spot is and will guide them there. With this holy grail of surfing as the catalyst, the men journey to way northern California to meet the old legend, who lives with his weird young wife in Indian land. She forms the basis for another plotline, as she asks around about a local girl who was apparently murdered by an Indian. For reasons that are never explained, she's obsessed with local Indian witchcraft, and wanders the woods at night. One of the novel's big flaws is that she's very poorly drawn, and it's hard to understand why she's married to the ex-surfer king, or what she's doing there.
As the surfers pursue their primal communion with the ocean, they manage to stir up trouble with the Indians, who aren't keen on outsiders. Next thing you know, some serious evil types arrive from "upriver", where the meth labs are... The tension mounts as the surfers hike all over, looking for the spot, unaware that some stone-killer Indians are on their trail. Eventually, the various obsessions and plotlines start to get all tangled up, and even the well-meaning people in the story can't escape. The whole thing is kind of alternately cheezy and offhandedly violent.
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