Well-respected authors and publications--including David Sedaris, the San Francisco Chronicle and Publishers Weekly--may well lose some hard-fought credibility after their latest praise for Arthur Bradford's debut novella, Dogwalker. Though highly acclaimed for his energetic style, Bradford's unendearing perversity shines through the short stories instead.
Bradford chronicles the misadventures of a nameless figure as he trudges through life, calmly observing the sheer absurdities of people swallowing eggs and regurgitating "snowfrogs" and of crack dealers locking their customers in closets. Floating through his shabby life, the main character associates with people with names like "Mattress" and "Catface," and one can only imagine what the protagonist's name would be if Bradford was resourceful enough to come up with one.
Throughout his short stories, Bradford contrives farcical methods to introduce dogs in an effort to make his title somewhat relevant. However, the most preposterous invention is that of a man and a dog having a baby that grows up to have puppies that can talk.
The premise of this particular story is that our oh-so-illustrious protagonist begins having sex with a dog; a few weeks later, his "lover" Ellouise has normal pups, except for one who is a "boy-dog." The main character puts his dogchild out in a shoebox on the river and sets him afloat, Moses-style, because the boy's not a keeper. The story then picks up with the main character meeting his offspring masquerading as a muskrat before an unfortunate misunderstanding leads to the fratricide of the muskrat.
If you think this story couldn't possibly become any weirder, fear not, for the muskrat managed to impregnate a women before his untimely death.
Hey, if muskrat love is your thing, then be my guest, but if you're not a fan of the beastiality, there are shelves of better options not too far away.
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