The Lost Dog (Michelle de Krester, A&U, $35 hb, ISBN 9781741753394, November) ****

Michelle de Kretser showed us in The Hamilton Case what a gifted writer she is, offering a multilayered and mixed-voice narrative which was at once a rich family history and a cracking good murder mystery. The compelling portrait of past and present, home and exile, loss and love, post-coloniality, and what belonging might mean, that made that book so attractive are revisited in an entirely original way in The Lost Dog. This is a love story and a mystery as well, where the collision of an Indian heritage and the realities of life in contemporary Australia are the backdrop. Beautifully threading the narrative layers is the story of the ‘lost dog’ itself. Lost at the beginning, reclaimed at the end, a city dog lost on a country excursion, the ‘speckled beast’ links the histories of the central characters, plot and setting and essentially ‘grounds’ a sophisticated exploration of the relationship between art and nature, and the weight of history, in primal reality. It’s quite an achievement; with de Kretser’s trademark densely textured language, rich visual imagery and depth of description making The Lost Dog a delight to savour as well as a tale to ponder..

David Gaunt is co-owner of Gleebooks in Sydney

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker