2008
Patrick Lane’s Red Dog, Red Dog is a tale of blood, loyalty and redemption. The novel centers on Eddy and Tom Stark, two brothers struggling with their hardscrabble inheritance in the Okanagan Valley. Theirs is a fiercely unforgiving world, and, for the reader, an unforgettable one. The strength of Lane’s perfectly cadenced prose may bring to mind Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy and, inevitably, the Bible. There is a deep wisdom in this book and I cannot recommend it highly enough.” —Richard Bachmann, A Different Drummer Books

“An unflinchingly dark and brutal book, the violence and anger matched only by the sublime radiance of the prose. . . . Audacious. . . . While the novel is of a time and place, its significance is universal.” —Victoria Times Colonist

“Superlative, poetic, almost-epic writing, somewhat reminiscent of Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy.” —Edmonton Journal

“Lane is masterful at painting his setting and characters. It’s a Canadian Appalachia, a stagnant backwater peopled with losers, no-hopers, dopers and white trash. And, when the family’s inexorable, unyielding doom descends, they deal with it as they always have, as they must. Lane retains the poet’s lyricism, and packs power and poignancy into his prose. Propelled in a downward spiral from mere madness to hell, Red Dog, Red Dog is a gripping, thrilling journey.” —Hamilton Spectator

“Faulkneresque.” —Toronto Star