- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Scribner (5 Jun 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743220633
- ISBN-13: 978-0743220637
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 834,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Sun Dog
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
A glorious collision of the mundane and the supernatural, Monique Roffey's wonderful debut Sun Dog is a magical realist tale that hails not from South America or the subcontinent but one of West London's grubbier neighbourhoods.
The book is set mainly in and around a Shepherd's Bush delicatessen. While Roffey vividly conjures this "gastronomic locker room" she positively lavishes her imagination on August Chalmin, her extraordinary protagonist. August is an awkward pale-skinned gentle giant who has "the eyes of a veal calf" and "blood-orange hair which limbo dances crazily from his head". His pigmentation matches the hues of the Mimolette cheese that lurks beside the Boscaillo olives, Venetian polenta, Milanese panettone and Caspian caviar on the deli's teeming counter. Although he understands food, much of life is a mystery to him. He’s captivated by matronly co-worker Henry and infatuated with Leola, the local florist, but love, at least so far, has largely proved elusive. Raised by his mother, Olivia, in a Yorkshire hippie commune, he never knew his father. When Cosmo, one of Olivia’s former lovers, suddenly materialises after more than 20 years he starts to wonder about his parentage.
As doubts grow, his appearance, odd enough to begin with, starts to change. His body becomes coated in frost. By spring, just as he is beginning to unearth more about his origins, buds sprout from his skin. His physiognomy appears to be echoing the seasons. Could he be allergic to the deli's food? Or, do these transformations offer a clue to the identity of his real father? More Hans Christian Anderson than Franz Kafka, Roffey's novel, replete with a few exquisite tributaries, is an ingenious fable about the nature of love, truth and perception.--Travis Elborough
Review
August is a large, awkward recluse with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes who hides his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. And when his mother's old lover reappears to taunt him, August finds his body changing with the seasons and through a year's wonderful metamorphism August changes into himself. A debut novel that is both startlingly original yet warmly accessible.
August is a lonely man; a man who feels awkward in social situations and envies others their ease. He wishes he is more like his purported father, Luke. But is Luke his father? And if not who is? And what is happening to August's body? It starts off as a strange rash resembling frost, but after there's a snowstorm around his head and then buds start appearing August begins to think that this complaint must be linked to the seasonal changes. And the really strange thing is how well it makes him feel. As August actually lives through the year within his body, he learns important things about himself, his friends and family. This is a wonderful book, a fascinating study of self-awakening and love - and an appreciation of the world around. The whole novel is alive and sensuous, heavy with the delights of food and flowers, with the wonder of lands unseen. Monique Roffey has strikingly captured her protagonist. She deftly portrays his shyness and angst and makes us believe with his friend Henry that he is 'wonderful' - and also an everyman with whom we can all identify. August's quirky friends are all well drawn and their idiosyncrasies are revealed gradually as their characters develop. A delightful, moving novel, and an excellent debut. (Kirkus UK)
August is a lonely man; a man who feels awkward in social situations and envies others their ease. He wishes he is more like his purported father, Luke. But is Luke his father? And if not who is? And what is happening to August's body? It starts off as a strange rash resembling frost, but after there's a snowstorm around his head and then buds start appearing August begins to think that this complaint must be linked to the seasonal changes. And the really strange thing is how well it makes him feel. As August actually lives through the year within his body, he learns important things about himself, his friends and family. This is a wonderful book, a fascinating study of self-awakening and love - and an appreciation of the world around. The whole novel is alive and sensuous, heavy with the delights of food and flowers, with the wonder of lands unseen. Monique Roffey has strikingly captured her protagonist. She deftly portrays his shyness and angst and makes us believe with his friend Henry that he is 'wonderful' - and also an everyman with whom we can all identify. August's quirky friends are all well drawn and their idiosyncrasies are revealed gradually as their characters develop. A delightful, moving novel, and an excellent debut. (Kirkus UK)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant Book,
By SMG (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sun Dog (Hardcover)
I absolutely loved this book! It is almost a modern fairy tale and telles the story August, a man who's body is starting to change sending him on a voyage of self-discovery. Along the way we learn about Henry and Rose who work with August, his mother Olivia, the delightfully barmy and poetic Cedric and Cosmo a figure from August's past who has come back to haunt him. The tale is beautifully told, drawing the reader further and further in until this book becomes unputdownable!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a magical first novel,
By
This review is from: Sun Dog (Hardcover)
'magic realism' has rarely worked for me, but over 390 richly textured pages, Sun Dog suspended both my scepticism and disbelief. The story is a simple one but deeply affecting. August, alone, rootless, blowing in the wind and literally changing with the seasons, seeks desperately to root himself, in a relationship with the flower girl Leola, and in his own history. In less skilful hands it might all have been unreadably fey, but by fixing the magical flights and departures of the story so firmly in the dusty streets of Shepherd's Bush, Monique Roffey makes it work brilliantly. It's a rather marvellous book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
weird and loveable,
By
This review is from: Sun Dog (Paperback)
When I read this book, it entered my imagination so strongly that I was walking around London looking at people in a very different way. The character August is weird and loveable, his story kept me entirely interested, and even though I read it a while ago, I still have some very strong images from a few of the scenes in my head. I think this is a great and enjoyable read, I recommend it.
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