Feed My Dear Dogs

A warm, dark novel of family, distance & time from the author of the much-loved, highly-praised, prize-nominated SISTER CRAZY.

An English novel of real brilliance.

Feed My Dear Dogs is a book with its telescopic gaze part-turned toward outer space, and like the sky at night it dazzles with a myriad points of light, but the longer you look at it the more you become all too aware of the defining darkness between.

It has a strange,compelling narrative sensibility that begins in outright observational comedy and slides into ever darker regions, while never losing its sharp tongue and wicked wit. Jem Weiss (her again!), the middle child of five, inhabits a family too fantastic to leave lightly, and experiences childhood more acutely, more joyously and more entertainingly than most. The five Weiss siblings crackle with intelligence, camaraderie, competitiveness and individuality; they have their own running gags, jargon, skits and power struggles; and they share a bearlike but adored father and an unflappable and omnicompetent mother. Jem’s life hums with Shackleton and supernovas, boxing and cowboys and cars, binocular doughnuts, naval underwear, satchels and knights, telescopes and travel: and at the center of this galaxy of delights is her shining family. And as Jem runs all her childhood memories through her fingers, she entrances the reader with her sharp observations, casual wisdom and tender wit. However, there’s always something else looming, and then and again it sneaks up, like her mother out of time in a red dress, with some pressing tidings to impart – a child’s terror at the prospect of moving on, growing up, leaving Home.