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Title: The Lost Dog

Author: Michelle de Kretser

Narrator: Rowena Cooper

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-18-11

Publisher: Random House AudioBooks

Ratings: 1.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Tom Loxley is holed up in a remote cottage in the bush, trying to finish a book on 'Henry James and the uncanny', when his dog goes missing, trailing a length of orange twine, tied with firm knots. Toms lonely childhood in India taught him to tie knots but not to hold on.

The house belongs to Nelly Zhang, an elusive artist with whom Tom has become enthralled. The narrative spans 10 days while Tom searches for his dog... and loops back in time to take the listener on a breath-taking journey into glittering worlds far beyond the present tragedy, from an Anglo-Indian childhood to the brittle contemporary Melbourne art scene, from Tom's scratchy, unbearably poignant relationship with his ailing mother to the unanswered puzzles in Nelly's past - her husband also disappeared in the bush. The listener will fear for Tom as well as for the dog.

Set in present-day Australia and mid-20th century India, here is a haunting, layered work that vividly counterpoints new cityscapes and their inhabitants with the untamed continent beyond. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained in any story, it illuminates the collision of the wild and the civilised, modernity and the past, home and exile. The Lost Dog is a mystery and a love story, an exploration of art and nature, a meditation on ageing and the passage of time. It is a book of wonders: a gripping contemporary novel that examines the weight of history as well as different ways of trying to grasp the world.

Members Reviews:

A review by Rob Kennedy

Michelle de Kretser writes and sounds like a poet. The short pithy perfectly constructed lines in The Lost Dog, have great appeal. The opening two lines completely set the story up; not many books have ever achieved this. The book is worth buying for those two lines alone.

Itâs good to see a modern book carrying modern connections in it, such as the references to the use of modern technology. Many contemporary books do not contain references to the things we use every day, and that makes them seem out of touch and unreal. The Lost Dog blends this into the contemporary, and into a drifting story that weaves through the life of a stubborn and sensitive man, the lead character, Tom Loxley.

Thereâs a sincere portrayal of a man and his union with a dog. The way an animal can get and remain under the skin of ever the hardest of men, not that Loxley is hard man. The book shows just how strong and permanent that union can be.

In many moments throughout the book, the image of that dog come back to Loxley, and these are some of the most poignant parts of the book. I feel itâs clear that de Kretser has a close relationship with animals, to be able to render them as she has.

Normally, Iâm not a lover of description, but when de Kretser does it, I get something out of it. The poetic imagery she is able to assign to even the smallest and most insignificant of objects, places and characters, actually adds fuel to the story, and it didnât turn me away as description does in so many other books.

At times, I did feel lost though. I havenât figured out if it was due to the depth of the story, or the sophisticated interlacing of ideas and memories; the lead does find himself in memory a lot.