The cover for Red Dog Red Dog as it appeared in the UK.

“Patrick Lane made his name as a poet. Goodness, can you tell. He has a fierce eye for detail and imagery… Breathtaking…Not only a searing portrait of a time and place…but also a noir-ish thriller…a really impressive debut.”
—The Metro (UK)

“Lane is undeniably an accomplished writer…and his achievement here is his evocation of a forbidding landscape as the element in which these embittered characters have their being…It is fitting that Lane’s oracular first novel ends not conclusively but with a hint of continuation of the kind of story it has told so well.” —Ross Wilson, Times Literary Supplement

“Occasionally a novel comes out of nowhere and blows you away. This is one of those…The writing is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy at times, spare and beautifully crafted; at other points it recalls William Faulkner. This is an impressive debut from a name to watch.” —Waterstone Books Quarterly

“Meanwhile, the acclaimed Canadian poet Patrick Lane has struck out in a new direction, completing his debut novel, Red Dog, Red Dog. As a long-term fan of the sheer variety and ambition of Canadian writing, I was hugely excited by the prospect, and the novel—an uncompromising family story set in the 1950s—does not disappoint. —Alex Clark (editor of Granta)

“Set in 1958, with flashbacks to the Depression and settler era, this impressive tale of redneck life in British Columbia exudes suffering and menace.”
—Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

“The writing is beautiful.” —Kate Saunders, The Sunday Times

“A rich brew…it is powerfully and…grippingly written…the descriptions of the natural world are very fine…Lane does have a knack of making his characters come to life.” —Alan Massie, The Scotsman

“Lane is talented and five decades as a poet are evident in his prose: rich and evocative, yet always precise.” —The Observer (UK)