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The Tale of A Dog
The Tale of A Dog
Nov 13, 2025 4:14 AM

Author:Lars Gustafsson,Tom Geddes

The Tale of A Dog

Caldwell lives by the lakeside at Austin, Texas, with his wife of thirty years, his two children having long ago flown the nest. He is a judge in the Federal Bankruptcy Court. And the dog? A mongrel that kept upsetting his dustbins as it rooted about in them, until the judge went after it and secretly beat its brains out with the edge-trimmers.

But this is not a crime story – for all that Caldwell’s lifelong mentor, the Dutchman van de Rouwers, Philosophy guru and idol of the American campuses, was fished out dead from the lake about the time his Murky Past caught up with him. No, this is a Philosophical Tale: weaving through the judge’s humdrum life between the Bench, the campus bookstore, the cocktail party circuit and his own kitchen, Great Metaphysical Questions are asked, about the reality of Good and Evil, ontological proofs of the existence of God, and the theoretical existence of the Most Intelligent Man in America.

Lars Gustafsson taps a rich vein of comedy in the series of contrasts here engendered between the mundane and the highflown as reported in the judge’s maybe fanciful narrative. The Tale of a Dog has marked affinity with his last novel, translated into English as A Tiler’s Afternoon, in the clearsighted dissection of small people trying to cope with an all too complex modern world.

Reviews

A thoroughly convincing novel

—— Allt om Böcker

Reminiscnet of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment…exciting and thought-provoking

—— Kristemokraten

At once wryly humorous and shrewd, intelligent and relaxed

—— Expressen

The kind of strange and ambitious fiction that you feared might have died with J. G. Ballard. ...Provokes and beguiles and, at the point of revelation, it withholds. On finishing it you will have the powerful urge to throw it across the room, then the powerful urge to pick it up to read again. And that’s what’s so brilliant.

—— Duncan White, 5 stars , Daily Telegraph

Confusing, clever and about to be massive.

—— Stylist

For page-turning ideas, it’s a must.

—— Esquire

Nails the modern condition of information overload

—— Anthony Cummins, 4 stars , Metro

Satin Island is an undeniably dazzling piece of writing, a perfect tight circle of interlocking motifs, mini-treatises and allusions.

—— Theo Tait , Sunday

A Kafka for the Google Age.

—— Daily Telegraph

Gripping... an elegant and eerie tale.

—— Shortlist

McCarthy’s crisp, clean prose is stimulating, his concepts original and his visual imagery powerful.

—— Leyla Sanai , Independent on Sunday

[An] entertaining slice of experimental fiction.

—— Sunday Express

Booker-nominated author Tom McCarthy’s latest offering is lean, smart and infuriating.

—— Charlotte Heathcote , Sunday Express

McCarthy's writing is cool and elegant, descriptive, yet informal and conversational.

—— Curious Animal Magazine

An intellectually challenging and highly engaging work of art.

—— JP O’Malley , Washington Post

It is dead-clever, very funny, insanely ambitious, sometimes insane, essentially brilliant and commendably engaged with the way we’re living our lives right now.

—— Stuart Hammond , Dazed Digital

Reading a McCarthy novel is like being in a McCarthy novel: everything is part of a fizzing network, the scope of which can never be fully apprehended.

—— Duncan White , Telegraph

Without beginning, middle, end – and especially lacking centre! – the novel comes to a halt, leaving the reader in a gorgeous daze of symbol and cypher, whose meaning is so clear, and yet tantalizingly opaque.

—— Aisling O’Gara , Totally Dublin

Satin Island is clever, vogue, slick and sleek.

—— Tamim Sadikali , Book Munch

Packed with intriguing and intellectual ideas… refreshingly thought-provoking.

—— Good Book Guide

Slender, foxily postmodern.

—— Sam Leith , Radio Times

The bleeding edge of science fiction is Satin Island.

—— Interzone

In Satin Island the narrator, U, takes us on a journey through the modern world of ideas, theories and references. It’s a wonderfully intense experience – as soon as I’d finished I wanted to read it again.

—— Edith Bowman , Radio Times

Convincing proof that the best writers of our time are anthropologists.

—— Anna Aslanyan , The Spectator

Favourite novel of 2015.

—— John Banville , Observer

A darkly funny and disturbing meditation on the intricacies and insubstantiality of our technology-ridden times. McCarthy is one of the most daring, most ambitious and most subtle of what at my age I can all the younger generation of writers.

—— John Banville , Irish Times

The novel often reads like a dramatic monologue, a very modern stream of consciousness, akin to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake… McCarthy’s novel is innovative, well crafted and challenging… This novel is breaking new ground, a breath of fresh air, at times a tour de force.

—— Vincent Hanley , Irish Times

McCarthy has put his finger on something, and he’s nailed it very precisely. It’s how we live now. All the information we process every day. What it’s doing to us.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard
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