Apologizing to Dogs - Hardcover

Coomer, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684859467 ISBN 13: 9780684859460

Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD, 1999

Synopsis

Times are tough on Worth Row. This is not to say, however, that it is by any means quiet on the Row, a place where bathtubs double as lawn furniture, and adultery, bribery and larceny are as commonplace as the glass eyeballs that pop up in every yard -- all that remains from the prosthetics mill that once sat on this land. For more than thirty years, the Row's antiques dealers have run their businesses from the front rooms of their aging shotgun-style houses. After all this time, their lives have become inextricably linked -- and undeniably complicated. It is suddenly clear that there's more to be exposed on the Row than buried body parts: it seems everyone has something to hide -- from their customers, their spouses, even themselves. And they feel they're being watched....They are. The seventy-two-year-old widow Effie keeps a minute-by-minute journal of her neighbors' activities, following even stray dogs from house to house, peeking, staring and spying, sure they are all out to steal her past, ruin her future, and plunder her "better things." The fact is, Row residents have far more to concern them than old Effie. Carl, behind curtains he never opens, is using his considerable woodworking talents to turn his life -- and his house -- inside out to prove his devotion to the vintage-clothing dealer Nadine. Howard Dog-in-His-Path, a grave-robbing Indian, keeps count of every pet buried in his neighbors' backyards. The Postlethwaites, running from a tragic past, have retired to long days at the mall photo shop, where they watch pictures of other people's lives roll off the developing machines. Mose, an aged inventor, is trying his hand at the ultimate invention: true love. Mazelle, a used-book dealer, has given up reading because the secret life she lives in the cistern beneath her husband's garden is far more interesting than any fiction. The dog Himself has no greater secret than the location of his next meal, but what he digs up may reveal more than his fellow Row residents would like. From the quirky to the certifiable, folks on the Row have definitely gotten their lines crossed. When a violent storm strikes, causing fire, a heart attack and grand theft, it stirs up more than just the earth it hits. Suddenly, long-buried truths are flowing faster than the flooding rains. When the dust and smoke finally clear, the Row has been turned upside down and nobody -- human or dog -- will ever be the same again. With a strong, rich and uproariously funny voice, Joe Coomer resurrects the magic of his previous novels, Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God and The Loop, and turns the utterly ordinary into the stunningly extraordinary. With a splendid cast of characters and the cleverest canine in comedy, Apologizing to Dogs is a hilarious, heartwarming and wonderfully human tale and proves that no matter how old you get, there's always something worth holding on to, fighting for and loving with all your might.

About this title

Review

Lori Leibovitch "The New York Times Book Review" Reading Joe Coomer's new novel is like watching an entertaining sitcom -- its characters are too zany to be real, but they're irresistible nonetheless....Coomer manages to squeeze a fascinating range of human experience into one little street in Texas.

Richard Wallace

"The Seattle Times"

This is neo-Southern Gothic country, and nobody writing today does it better and funnier than Joe Coomer.

"Kirkus Reviews"

Thirty years' worth of secrets, most having to do with sex and love, are exposed in the course of one frantic day in this deftly plotted mix of comedy and romance....Coomer manages it all with a surprisingly light, often witty, touch....A sharply observant and engaging entertainment.

Lori Leibovitch

"The New York Times Book Review"

Reading Joe Coomer's new novel is like watching an entertaining sitcom -- its characters are too zany to be real, but they're irresistible nonetheless....Coomer manages to squeeze a fascinating range of human experience into one little street in Texas.

Richard Wallace"The Seattle Times"This is neo-Southern Gothic country, and nobody writing today does it better and funnier than Joe Coomer.

Lori Leibovitch"The New York Times Book Review"Reading Joe Coomer's new novel is like watching an entertaining sitcom -- its characters are too zany to be real, but they're irresistible nonetheless....Coomer manages to squeeze a fascinating range of human experience into one little street in Texas.

"Kirkus Reviews"Thirty years' worth of secrets, most having to do with sex and love, are exposed in the course of one frantic day in this deftly plotted mix of comedy and romance....Coomer manages it all with a surprisingly light, often witty, touch....A sharply observant and engaging entertainment.

Sharan Gibson "Houston Chronicle" Joe Coomer...manages to make the eccentric seem perfectly ordinary.

"Texas Observer" Coomer manages to write the world into a small space, and like a brain surgeon with his scalpel, wields his pen accurately and incisively....A master of lyric brevity.

Amanda Heller "The Boston Globe" Coomer writes so well, with such freshness and authenticity, that we hate to put the book down.

About the Author

Joe Coomer is the author of Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, The Loop, Sailing in a Spoonful of Water and an award-winning book of nonfiction, Dream House. He lives in Azle, Texas, and Eliot, Maine.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0684859467
• ISBN 13: 9780684859460
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 287