The Dog of the North

by Elizabeth Mckenzie

From the National Book Award-longlisted author of The Portable Veblen

Penny Rush has problems. Her marriage is over, and she's quit her job. Her mother and stepfather went missing in the Australian outback five years ago; her mentally imbalanced father provokes her; her grandmother, Dr. Pincer, keeps experiments in the refrigerator and something worse in the woodshed. But Penny is a virtuoso at what's possible when all else fails.

The Dog of the North follows Penny on her quest for a fresh start. There will be a road trip in an old van with gingham curtains, a piñata, and stiff brakes. There will be injury and peril. There will be a dog named "Kweecoats" and two brothers who may share a toupée. There will be questions: Why is a detective investigating her grandmother, and what is "the scintillator"? And can Penny recognize a good thing when it finally comes her way?

This slyly humorous, thoroughly winsome novel finds the purpose in life's curve balls, insisting that even when we are painfully warped by those we love most, we can be brought closer to our truest selves.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Adult, Adult Fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2023

Reviews

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

Our protagonist, thirty-five-year-old Penny Rush, has a lot on her plate. Her marriage recently fell apart and she is currently unemployed and strapped for cash, but she doesn’t have the time to brood over all of this, given that she has to attend to an issue concerning her grandmother, Dr. Pincer, whose living situation has fallen under the radar of Adult Protective Services. Penny is on her way to her grandmother's house in Santa Barbara, to get it cleaned (Pincer hoards more than rats and jars of weird specimens on her property and won’t make it easy for Penny), with help of her grandmother’s accountant, Burt Lampey with whom she strikes up an easy friendship. But things do not go as planned and what follows is a sequence of (mis)adventures that has Penny jumping from one crisis to another. We follow her as she deals with the situation with her grandmother, finds herself responsible for Burt’s adorable Pomeranian, Kweecoats (a mispronounced version of “Quixote''), embarks on a road trip in Burt’s green van named “Dog of the North” with a donkey-shaped piñata and a weird weapon-like instrument, the “scintillator”, she had to confiscate from her grandmother, travels to Australia with her grandfather Arlo whose second wife would rather have him in a senior care facility than at home, navigates her complicated relationship with her biological father and fights her attraction to Dale, Burt’s attractive younger brother who might be married. At the center of Penny’s troubles is her own family trauma - the disappearance of her mother and stepfather while on a trip in the Australian Outback five years ago. They had emigrated to Australia years ago and Penny’s sister, Margaret is also settled in Australia with her family. Penny has to come to terms with the fact that they are truly gone.

The Dog of the North by Elizabeth Mckenzie is an engaging story full of heart and humor. There is a lot to unpack in this novel. The author touches upon themes of elder care, family trauma, friendship, loss and healing in this quirky and thoroughly entertaining read. However, I would have liked the road trip segment to have been longer because that was what I was expecting. Despite the occasional farfetchedness, this story is one that held my attention. Penny suffers from low self-worth and on occasion, her choices are foolhardy and her decisions are questionable – but her flaws make her real and ultimately she is a character you can sympathize with and root for. As the narrative progresses, we see that the borderline ridiculous situations and people Penny encounter prompts her to pause and reflect on her own life amid all the madness happening all around her. At the heart of this novel is Penny’s journey - emotional and cathartic- that will help Penny reevaluate her own life and priorities. I liked that the author ends the story on a hopeful note instead of making it too neat and thereby, unconvincing. I will say, however, that to fully enjoy this novel, would require the reader to not overthink it and to just go with the flow.

This is my first Elizabeth McKenzie novel and I can’t wait to read more of her work. I paired my reading with the audio narration by Katherine Littrell which enhanced my experience.


Connect with me!
My Blog
Instagram

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

SooooooooF……ing GOOD!!!!! Nobody writes like Elizabeth McKenzie …,,.

She is brilliant— hilarious - creative as hell ….. I’m SPENT — I could NOT put this novel down!!! It’s a little like the wild dreams Paul has sometimes—- CRAZY — wild - filled with charming sensations- sentences- words - bizarre beautiful - moments —- nutty and great — great and nutty!

Gee…. I could spend a few hours with Elizabeth McKenzie easily!!!! And be in HEAVEN!!
Wait ….
….I have been — with Elizabeth for a few hours — in the Saratoga library one mid week morning years ago …
AND I LOVED HER ….. learned a lot too ( about her life - her writing style - passion - and thoughts about things writers do and don’t do that work and what doesn’t work and why that is……


But I guess I should write a review about THIS story ….
Okay — I can — but honestly — I’ll never do the experience justice.

So - just read the blurb - it says enough ….
And I’ll leave a few sample excepts to go along with the BLURB— so that anyone reading THIS - non-styling - wacko review—
will have an idea — or not — if this is a great choice book for you— or not!

As for me - I bought this book IMMEDIATELY… never read one review - THAT’S how much I wanted to read it. I tried to get an advanced copy of it months ago from Netgalley— NOT that I minded paying for it — I just knew I wanted it — but I never heard from the Netgalley folks - no yes or no
— so I bought it on its publishing day.
Happy to go in blind — anytime — with Elizabeth McKenzie!!!

Some sample prose:

“Adding to my general unease were thoughts I was leaving behind. In the past twenty-four hours I’d abruptly left my job, burning a bridge that I was happy to cross for the last time, and I’d confronted my husband, Sherman: I know all about Bebe Sinatra and the cocaine”.
“True, I took the cowardly way and wrote emails, but they were masterpieces of obfuscation. And no way did they reveal the depths of my disgust at what precipitated this rupture. They were the whimper rather than the bang at the end of my world, but I could not move forward if I were to permit myself, the full brunt of my feelings”.

“At the bus near Salinas, I started to breathe evenly. A hair glinted on my sleeve; I pulled it off and let it fly out the slightly opened window into the fields of brussels sprouts and artichokes flanking the highway. A rotten smell, like that from the neglected vegetable, then at the bottom, as my last refrigerator, was blowing in. Despite the fact that I was finished with Sherman, I wondered where he was, and what he was doing, and if I’d always wonder, no matter how humiliating the final days of our time together”.


Detective Ron Storke - was a man in his mid forties.
“He had long, red, spidery eyebrows that danced over the rim of his glasses when he spoke. His nose was long and pointy, and beneath that nose was a rust-colored mustache that looked strangely impenetrable. His lips were chapped and puckered. His chin was small and crisscrossed by red capillaries that had burst near the surface, and, despite his slender frame, he had several double chins bristling with ocher stubble. He wore black slacks, held up by a black leather belt that had turned gray from numerous jabs around the belt, holes, and a short-sleeve blue shirt, with a pocket on the breast, which held several pens that looked chewed on. The arms that protruded from the shirt were bony and freckled, covered with billowing clouds of reddish body hair, into which a steel-banded watch had dug a trench”.


“Burt began to rhapsodize about my grandmother. She’s a great lady, whatever you say, at the end of the day, he said. A great lady. I’ve learned a lot from her. She is one of the worlds. Great people, he said to my surprise”.
“What do you like about her?”
“The woman is an original thinker. She has her own opinions and she doesn’t suffer fools. She’s not afraid to speak her mind. And she’s as strong as an ox, let me tell you. You should see her jump into the Dog”.
“This demanded clarification”.
“My van. Dog of the North. All I got at the end of the marriage”.
“Really, that’s all you got?”
“What can I say, the woman’s greedy. When she was greedy for me, I liked it”.
“How old are you, Burt? I asked, disinhibited by the delicious drink”.
“Guess”
“Sixty-five?”
“Hey, ouch! I’m fifty-seven! Shit”.
“I’m really bad with ages! I apologize”.

Penny was thirty-five.

“I asked why he called it the Dog of the North; he said his ex named it in honor of a beloved novel with a similar name. Literary references aside, he said the name combined two of his favorites, trips, north, and dogs”.

Over a yummy Mexican meal and margaritas, Burt and Penny we’re getting to know each other. Burt was a trusted accountant to Penny’s grandmother.

Penny was telling Bert about her separation to Sherman.
“Marriage is one long striptease of the soul”, Penny told Burt.
Marriage was not Penny’s favorite subject…. but the margaritas were making her feel “relaxed and insouciant”.
[great word: ‘insouciant’…showing a causal lack of concern] > I love the word and may begin to use it more often.


TONS ….. of other great words! FABULOUS FRESH FUN WRITING
Great stories!!!

Guess you can tell I loved it!!!!

Great ending too!!!

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m in love with a grieving misfit driving around with a donkey-shaped piñata in an old van held together by duct tape. Her name is Penny Rush. She’s the hapless heroine of Elizabeth McKenzie’s new novel, and she’s something of a piñata herself. How long she’ll survive the beating that life’s been giving her is an open question in “The Dog of the North.”

We catch up with Penny mid-descent. Yes, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but this one is unhappy in every way. Penny’s mother and stepfather vanished in the Australian Outback five years ago, leaving her in “a weird limbo,” a fugue of unresolved mourning. Now, she’s finally abandoned her boring job and her philandering husband, Sherman, in Santa Cruz. The “cowardly” emails Penny wrote to sever ties “were the whimper rather than the bang at the end of my world,” she says. Sherman was “the tool with which my inner depths had been plumbed, exposing all my limitations and vulnerabilities.”

With what passes for optimism, she declares, “My future was up for grabs.” Her greatest goal is to “achieve a conventional lifestyle.” It doesn’t look promising.

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

“She’s as strong as an ox, let me tell you. You should see her jump into the Dog.”
This demanded clarification.
“My van. Dog of the North. All I got at the end of the marriage.”
“Really, that’s all you got?”
“What can I say, the woman’s greedy. When she was greedy for me, I liked it.”

I quite enjoyed Elizabeth McKenzie’s last novel (The Portable Veblen), placing it on the more palatable end of the whimsical-to-precious scale, and her latest — The Dog of the North — takes that whimsy and adds on some darker layers that provide a provocative growth-through-pain story arc. McKenzie’s is a really unique voice: the blend of pain and playfulness felt a bit otherworldly, but the specific details anchor the novel in our recognisable reality of love and loss. I’m struggling a bit to capture the tone here, but I think that’s the point: who doesn’t struggle trying to articulate the weirdness of the world and being a human in it? McKenzie succeeds by keeping it weird-but-believable and I’m rounding this 3.5 up to four stars because it suited me fine. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

I asked why he called it the Dog of the North; he said his ex had named it in honor of a beloved novel with a similar name. Literary references aside, he said, the name combined two of his favorites, trips north and dogs.

Penny Rush has quit her job and left her failed marriage, and when she receives word that her crotchety old grandmother could use some help sorting out her affairs (and her hoarder home), she’s happy for the diversion and takes the train from Salinas to Santa Barbara. Her grandmother’s accountant, Burt Lampey, picks Penny up from the train station in his sea-green Econoline van (“The Dog of the North”) and the two form a fast friendship that will lead Penny on a series of (mis)adventures, which will eventually lead her to a more authentic life.

Plenty of the whimsical details come from proper names (I still don’t know why the titular van even needed a name) and along the way we meet: Penny’s grandfather’s second wife Doris Roofla Reshnappet (who painted nudes with “porcine trunks and lots of jarring genital detail”); Penny’s biological father Gaspard (with his beady eyes, long, grizzled beard and dreams of hitting it rich with his recipe for Steak in a Trout™); a Pomeranian named Kweecoats (“like Quick Oats but with a French accent”; apparently an inside joke about a mispronunciation of “Quixote''); Penny’s brother-in-law Wilhelmus Janssen (professional soccer player and “reclusive hunk”); and Penny’s childhood pediatrician, Dr. Fountain-Goose (who fortuitously turns up on the same flight to Australia as Penny). And as for the darker material: There are hospitalisations, broken marriages, and a seventy-two hour psych hold; literal skeletons in the closet, being lost at sea, and dangerous infections; selective mutism, sinkholes, and having one’s parents disappear on the other side of the world:

I contemplated the years that had passed since I’d last seen my mother and Hugh, and a familiar lump rose in my throat. My mother and I used to speak nearly every day on the phone, eager as she was to stay connected no matter the distance. Back then it was almost as if nothing had seemed real until she’d heard about it. Was that why nothing had seemed real since?

Penny has not only overcome plenty of personal challenges, but she’s very self-aware about her own personality quirks, noting “I had a trait that worked against me, which was that if I ever received a compliment, a loud roar, like a great fire crackling on a ridge, would fill my ears and the compliment would thus be vaporized,” and “Though I hated to volunteer information without absolute certainty it was of interest to the other person, I went ahead and mentioned that my grandmother didn’t appear to have murdered anyone.” Still, despite starting the novel with so much loss, Penny makes instant connections with Burt and his brother Dale, and we are witness to the wonderful support that she receives from her sister and her grandfather (and her grandmother when she’s in the right mood). Although there are some truly weird happenings, between the specificity of the details (medical, geographical, botanical) and Penny’s going with the flow of uncertain tides, I simply believed this story and can recognise the craft that McKenzie brought to bear in order to make that so. There’s not much deeper here, but the tone and characters worked for me.

[TBS · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished this maddening, marvelous book, it made me think about some of the reasons I love reading novels. There are the usual ones: encountering the snag and pull of a good story, discovering alternate POVs, seeing the breadth and depth of a fictional world, and falling into sheer escapism, but there also is another one. I am captivated by the mind-numbing richness and diversity of authors’ unique voices. And among them, a special place must be made for Elizabeth McKenzie, whose books are often described as “dazzlingly original,” “raw, weird, and hilarious,” “arch and whimsical,” and “delightfully frisky.” They are also unexpectedly profound, unpredictable, and full of twists and enticing subplots that are can branch out into fully realized dramas or left tantalizingly unexplored.

These traits and talents are on full display in “The Dog of the North,” which traces part of the winding geographical and life journey of Penny Rush, who is recovering from a disastrous marriage, an unhappy job, and the disappearance of her beloved geologist mother and stepfather 5 years ago in the Australian outback. The term “selfless” is quite apt to describe Penny who, along with feeling responsible for the world, or rather her little corner of it, seems adrift from a solid definition of self. “I could not move forward if I were to permit myself the full brunt of my feelings,” she states early on. But moving on she does, for a new start by traveling to Santa Barbara to help her mercurial and often vicious grandmother, Pincer, who has come to the attention of the Adult Protective Services after threatening at a Meals on Wheels staff member with a strange and possibly deadly weapon. Now Penny must disarm Pincer and “provide for her needs,” or there will be further involvement. Pincer’s house and property is in a critical and possibly actionable state of disarray and Pincer’s accountant, the charismatic toupee wearing Burt Lamprey has enlisted Penny’s aid for a sneak attack from a cleaning service and a weapon-hunting mission. What turns up though, among many other things, are Burt’s attractive married younger brother, many hospital visits for various characters, human remains, a sweet Pomeranian dog named Kweecoats, oddball failed business ventures, road trips in a van named The Dog of the North, Penny’s meta-talented physician sister and her family, a talking fish, a grand quest involving another continent, and the unspooling of a mystery.

Penny’s life seems to be populated by menacing figures, including Pincer, who attacks Penny with a jewelry brooch, her grandfather’s second wife, Doris, who summarily evicts him on the basis of his aging, a spying, threatening neighboring tenant on Burt’s floor, and Penny’s volatile, terrifying biological father who has a long habit of stalking her, scaring her and disappearing. “I’ve always found it strange how quickly a person can lose control, how thin the veneer of civilized behavior really is,” Penny ponders, as will the reader.

McKenzie finds utter strangeness and cosmic satisfaction in her many characters and their obsessions. They are endlessly fascinating to watch, even as an we beg them to have some clarity, some self-awareness of the grand mess they are making of their lives. The hapless characters, including Penny, Burt, and her grandfather Arlo, often cross paths with those bristling with dogmatic passion and the outcome is usually unfortunate, but also usually enthralling, even as these characters are sometimes discarded or ignored for other new characters who bring their own dish of weird to the narrative table.

But this is a moveable feast, and McKenzie is mostly in control, and so adept at casting a phrase or description that it keeps the structure in place. At one point, after becoming disoriented on one of her many journeys and remembering disconnected pieces of her life, Penny wonders “if this was symbolically relevant-a miniature version of the past 10 years or so, a mess of jagged pieces that had never found a way to assemble into a sensible whole.” This is a good paradigm for the book. It is funny and compelling and whether the whole comes together or not, I would not miss this trip for anything. Recommended especially for those who feel their world is slipping into monotones and really for just about anyone. My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I read the Portable Veblen by the same author several years ago, I didn't like the book because of a "heaping overdose of quirk" and stated in my review that "this book is trying so hard to be whimsical and odd that it just looks foolish and gets in its own way." So I suppose it is my own fault that I ended up listening to this book, and being (surprise!) fatally annoyed by the manic quirkiness of the plot and manic hapless quirkiness of our heroine.

Mckenzie has definitely honed her craft in that the "trying hard" doesn't show as much in this book, and in fact the book cruises rather speedily along, with the prose never trying to do anything particularly challenging but also never getting in its own way. The audio narrator is game, and it is a "fast listen."

That said, while I'm sure there are plenty of people who like plots that seem to be assembled by mad libs ("irascible Southern belle surgeon grandmother who is a filthy hoarder and tax evader"), with manic antic event breathlessly succeeding manic antic event, I am not one of them. This is the kind of book where the heroine's main personality traits are haplessness (she lurches from accident to injury to accident, and when she's not neglecting her injuries so that she winds up in septic shock, she manages to get chile oil spilled on her so she has to wander around stained and dirty for several chapters) and clueless yelling (most "dramatic" scenes involve someone trying to communicate something to Penny, our heroine, and she yells back in surprise, incomprehension or denial (or all 3) as she lurches from crisis to crisis, because that's charming? funny?).

Anyway, enough said. I suppose someone more charitable than me would say that it's a heartwarming tale of loveable eccentrics. But none of the characters are more than sketches, the plot doesn't bear thinking about it, and a vague attempt to spoon in some emotional depth and pathos in the book's final third doesn't succeed. Not for me.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this. It was completely nutty and surreal, but hilariously funny in some parts and i loved all the characters. The plot was highly unique and quirky as well and i was heavily invested by the end!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good and so much fun.

[Mike Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the cover and the publisher's summary, I assumed The Dog Of The North was going to be another take on the familiar theme of Redemption By Roadtrip. One of those books where a likeable woman has arrived, through a series of unfortunate events, at a point where the life she'd expected to live has imploded so she sets out on a lone quest to find a new place where she can belong and along the way, she encounters larger-than-life characters who help her discover her inner strength and some of whom become her found-family when she finally starts to build a life that will help her be her true self. Cue sunset and happy-ever-after music. It's a good theme and I'd have been happy to see a few new twists on old tropes.

One line on the cover should have told me that my expectations might be a little off. The one that says Shortlisted For The Women's Prize For Fiction. The Women's Prize For Fiction normally goes to quite literary books. The 2022 winner was Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness. The 2021 winner was Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. It's not the kind of prize a Redemption By Roadtrip novel is likely to win unless it goes way off-piste.

By the way, the publisher seems to have gotten ahead of itself with that statement. The Dog Of The North is on the Women's Prize For Fiction Longlist but the Shortlist won't be announced until 28th April, more than a month from now.

Anyway, it turns out that The Dog Of The North was... well... odd. Cleverly, nicely, engagingly, sometimes humorously odd but always, and ultimately disturbingly, odd.

The oddness starts with the main character and is compounded by how she tells her story. Penny Rush is a woman in her thirties who has been so deeply damaged by her childhood and her marriage that she's reached a point where she is unsure of her right to be anywhere. She struggles with the most humdrum human interactions. Her first instinct is to be as invisible as possible and, when that's not possible, to apologise for her own existence. Penny is confused and she has difficulty being honest with herself about how she feels and what she wants. As Penny is the one telling the story, it shouldn't be surprising that I was also confused as I read the story.

I was halfway through the book and still had no idea where the story was going. The narrative felt like a long fall down a rabbit hole. I could see that this 'falling forward' mirrored Penny's mental state. She has difficulty having confidence in her own worth, bordering on uncertainty about her right to be anywhere. She is unmoored from her past life and coping with the chaos of her grandparents' lives while trying to find a place and a person to be. Her grandmother is a domineering, aggressive, accomplished woman who lives partly in a fantasy world, suffers from paranoia and mood swings and has a life-long habit of using the people around her to get her own way. Her grandfather is in a failing marriage to a much younger woman and is starting to suffer from cognitive decline. Penny, who puts a lot of energy into avoiding confronting her own problems, somehow ends up taking responsibility for solving her grandparents' problems. The result, of course, is chaos.

The publishers described this book as 'darkly comic'. I think that means it will make you laugh but you'll feel guilty about it afterwards.

This book didn't make me laugh. Not once. I don't think that's what it was trying to do. This is a story about a woman who is so starved of affection and so unused to human connection that she becomes inappropriately emotionally attached to anyone who shows her kindness. The man who first shows her kindness also has issues. He's divorced, off his depression meds, living out of his van and in danger of losing his law practice. This makes for some bizarre scenes but I didn't find any of them funny.

I hadn't realised it as I was reading but I'd become emotionally detached as I listened to Penny's account of a series of increasingly bizarre mishaps. This was partly because she told her story in a way that made light of her anxiety and her problems with her self-worth so that this story felt like a comedy where the humour was falling flat. Then, in the final section of the book, I was given a flashback to Penny's childhood that took me from detachment to anger in seconds. I was listening to a pompous, ludicrously over-confident paediatrician mangling a psychiatric assessment with ten-year-old Penny and suddenly I was truly angry. I wanted to strangle him for the damage he was doing.

So, now I was engaged and ready for the big finish. It didn't happen. Perhaps I was only expecting it to happen because I still hadn't let go of my Redemption By Roadtrip expectations and was looking for Penny's route to her Happy-Ever-After. What actually happened was more subtle, probably more truthful but sadly much less satisfying. Penny didn't have an epiphany. She didn't solve all her problems in a single step by attaching herself to new people She didn't suddenly become strong and fulfilled and self-confident. BUT she did start to like herself a little more and to find ways of saying what she wanted and what she didn't want and to feel entitled to prioritise her own needs.

As I said, it's an odd book. In this case, odd isn't bad but it does make the reader work harder to understand what they're reading.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction—this is VERY QUIRKY with the writing style being quite unique from what I’m used to. This story is definitely humorous.. this due to several characters that are literally OUT there.. peculiar, odd + wacky if you get my meaning. The main protagonist is Penny Rush who’s life is basically falling apart—her marriage is over, she’s quit her job, is currently homeless, is estranged from her eccentric father + a sister, AND her mother and step-father had disappeared 5 years prior in the Australian Outback—so she’s basically looking for a fresh start. She goes to visit her eccentric grandmother (aka Pincer) who is a retired doctor with onset dementia.. which is a perplexing problem in itself. A human skeleton is found in her shed.. weird experiments are found in her basement.. so of course Pincer is sent to a hospital ward for evaluation + she is being investigated by the police.

I really liked Penny, who although a misfit that makes questionable decisions, seemed to be good-hearted at the core. She just goes with the flow to keep everyone cared for and happy—no matter what life throws her way. She goes from one crisis to another, there being a multitude in this book. My favorite character was Burt who owns the old green van that he calls “Dog of the North.” He’s Pincer’s CPA that was sent to pick Penny up at the train station, giving her lodging for a few nights and the use of his van after he unexpectedly has emergency surgery the next day. My main concern after finishing the book is that there are a lot of things that don’t get wrapped up—what happened to Penny’s parents or with Pincers legal troubles? I feel there are too many shenanigans and not enough depth. I know now that I put too much thought into this when reading.. my mistake.. so just take it as is with an open mind. 3 stars — Pub. 3/14/23

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, the dog of the north is not a dog and this droned on and on and on and on.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too melodramatic to get any more stars. I have rounded up here as I do that with all books but if I was marking out of 10 then this is 5/10 stars at best and not 6/10. It is farcical that the main character launches from one crisis to another, some pretty catastrophic, and of her own making/stupidity when even the dumbest of dumb people would have sought help on something much sooner - like the infection in her leg, and the ramifications of her inaction, come on, went way too far and too unbelievable.

This required much too much of a suspension of disbelief to be enjoyable. Maybe this is my personal view but because of the ridiculous nature it stopped being funny or interesting quite quickly. Which is a shame as there was a lot of good stuff here that might have been better if edited so there were less catastrophes to focus on. Even when there had been a chapter on really serious problems, the author then felt the need to add more minor chaos like a bird destroying their herb garden - why? Not needed and just made me roll my eyes even more. Needed pruning - maybe set the herb destroying bird on the text? - so there wasn't quite as many crises.

And SPOILER ALERT, it is like the author just ran out of steam and said, ok that'll do, as lots of the key plot points were just left hanging. Which is pretty annoying given the massive focus on them all and they were the point of the book.

[Lita · Rating 5 out of 5]

[4.5 stars] The Dog of the North is one of those books that resonated with me personally. Maybe because 35 was the age things started to go terribly wrong in my life as well. Maybe it is because the author chose to speak about other challenges in a woman's life besides finding the love of her life. Penny Rush (our main heroine) is dealing with a lot of problems, and her mental and emotional resources have been stretched to the limits. But as the universe would have it, there's always more to come. Her parents have been missing (and presumed dead) for nearly five years, her marriage is officially over, her job sucks (and she had just quit), and her grandmother is something of a mad woman. However, in dealing with all these issues, she meets new friends and reconnects with some family members. Ultimately, she tries to find a space for herself and a way to be herself despite all the past and current traumas. The story was sometimes absurd, sometimes funny, and sometimes deeply sad. I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone dealing with loss or elderly relatives.  

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

easy going read and funny in parts quite enjoyed the novel and fast paced too with some funny characters

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This screwiest of screwball comedies is quirky, quirky, quirky, and very funny! Penny is a young woman whose marriage has just disintegrated, along with pretty much everything else in her life. She has even ended up near-penniless and homeless (I know this doesn’t sound like the makings of comedy, but trust me), so she’s in the perfect position to come to the rescue of various wildly dysfunctional family members and their associates. The events that then unfold are almost jaw-droppingly unbelievable, involving, oh, let’s see, a scientist grandmother who’s a couple of hundred thousand dollars in tax arrears and whose property conceals a newly discovered decades-old radioactive skeleton, triggering the intense interest of local authorities; her grandmother’s loveable but haplessly incompetent accountant, who is living in a broken-down RV he’s dubbed the Dog of the North; her 93-year-old grandfather, long since divorced from her grandmother and now married to a truly awful woman, who decides he and Penny immediately need to go to the barrens of Northern Territory Australia to look into the five-year-old disappearance of Penny’s beloved geologist mother and stepfather. Penny herself has the patience of a saint but what seems to be something of an anxiety disorder (and who could blame her?), as well as depression in the wake of her failed marriage. There’s a thread of melancholy running beneath all the madness, which, for my money, just intensifies the humour. This one is kind of tough to categorize.

[tabitha✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5⭐️ rounded up

Lacklustre.

This was very meh. It might be me, but what was this book trying to do?? I don’t understand what this book was trying to show or tell the reader, what it wanted to make them feel. I almost knew & felt more before actually reading it.

The plot never really got going, there were so many elements which I wanted it to explore & they just went nowhere. It has some wonderful locations but it just jumped between them without actually giving us much description. The characters are pretty one dimensional. The titular symbol is not actually as prevalent as I expected. The writing is nothing special.

Quite confused as to why this was women’s prize longlisted.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been a while since a book has made me actually laugh out loud multiple times. Elizabeth McKenzie has such an erudite way of addressing deep depressing topics with a genuine humor that doesn’t feel forced. I knew I’d love this novel early on, when just her words and choice of phrasing were causing me to laugh and reread entire paragraphs in delight. I can appreciate the skill it takes to form a character who is traumatized and insecure (in some very relatable ways) and still craft a breezy story. There’s something sweetly optimistic about the whole thing. It caught me at the right time.

[johnny ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

too quirky, too all over the place. the first half was pretty decent, but it quickly devolved into something that was not enjoyable.

[lfreaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely one of the worst reads ever…I only opted for it as its on the Women’s Prize longlist this year but give me grace and understanding that this is in the same universe as Haynes, Kingsolver, o’Farrell or even Croft!!! A dreadful cast of madcap characters who are linked in ways that felt, at best, uninteresting. Loss/death with oddly truncated experiences of grief , humor lacking any and all wit, a narrator whose pathos read little more than pathetic. For the life of me I cannot imagine why this made any list of writing worthy of attention. Am seriously rethinking this years’ judges, overlooking Tess Gunty, Jennifer Egan and even Celeste Ng for this?? Just hoping this was an irregularity that stays anomalous in the shortlist to come!

[Dan White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Elizabeth McKenzie's best book so far, which is really saying a lot. The fearsome and charismatic Pincer, and the land of Australia, both cast a powerful and dark pull on a book that is at turns hilarious and shocking, triumphant and sad. I don't want to wreck any surprises for those who have not read it, but there is one surrealistic flourish that is among the funniest and most moving sequences McKenzie has written. If you've read her previous books, you'll see certain thematic connectivities, especially between this one and her previous book, The Portable Veblen, but this one finds its own road forward, just like the old van that gives the book its name.

[Fleur Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t for me but I still had a great time. This story went everywhere which was fun. It was quirky, funny, weird, heartwarming and actually pretty summer appropriate. I was missing some closure at the end but I did like the hopeful note it ended on. I don’t have the brain capacity for a fuller review so this is it lmao

[Pallavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Longlisted for the Women’s Prize 2023.

I took a long time to finish this one. And it has nothing to do with the book.
We meet Penny Rush, a 35-year-old whose life looks like chaos. Let me list them down.
1. She is unemployed
2. Her relationship with her biological father is toxic
3. Her marriage fell apart
4. She is plagued with problems related with her grandma, Dr. Pincer who is under the radar of Adult Protective Services
5. Her beloved grandpa, Arlo (formerly married to Dr. Pincer) is graded senile by his second wife Doris and wants to leave him to care home.
6. Her mother and stepfather, who had moved to Australia disappeared in to the Australian Outback five years ago.
7. Her stepsister, Margaret settled in Australia with a perfect family and good life. Actually, this one is a boon.

Penny leaves her job with dwindling bank account to set the chaos straight. We see her moving around trying to handle one situation after another. She meets new people like Burt and his brother Dale with their own stories.

This is a story of pain and healing yet narrated in a different, funny way. We are aware of the problems but still there is a tinge of humor along with sadness or helplessness. I enjoyed reading it and I admire the author who has different style of writing.
Happy Reading!!!

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC of this fantastic, hilarious, charming read. I'm not familiar with the author's other books, but I read that she was a past National Book Award nominee, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with this, and I was correct.

The Dog of the North is the quirky, laugh-out-loud funny, yet often touching tale of Penny, a woman in her mid-30s who finds herself adrift at the novel's beginning--separated from her husband, homeless, jobless, and facing a escalating series of crises in her family. Her beyond-eccentric physician grandmother seems to be rapidly losing her grip on reality, her mother and stepfather have been missing in Australia for five years, and her elderly grandfather is facing a marital crisis of his own with his much-younger second wife. This book is populated by a cast of numerous colorful characters--including, most notably, Penny's grandmother's free-spirited accountant, Burt, whose life is based out of a ramshackle van (the titular "Dog of the North"); Burt's more subdued brother, Dale, an attorney; and Burt's Pomeranian, Kweecoats (named for a mispronunciation of a well-known fictional character...).

This brilliant, episodic (and, dare I say, quixotic) novel defies summary and needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated--my brief summary does not do the hemisphere-spanning plot justice. I will be purchasing a copy when it is released and definitely recommending this to my book club. This novel seems like it would be popular with fans of Fredrik Backman and other books with quirky, but lovable characters.

[bell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m quite confused as to how this book made its way onto the Women's Prize 2023 longlist. I almost DNF-ed it at 50% because this was so boring and completely unremarkable. The plot lines were all over the place; there were too many things happening but none explored. The characters were boring, lacklustre and one-dimensional. The ending was too abrupt and left too many loose ends. The writing also left something to be desired. Would not recommend this.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun novel that I listened to after reading Ron Charles' review in the Washington Post. The improbable story teeters on the edge of being too whimsical, but doesn't quite tip over. The narrator of the audio version captures Penny's voice perfectly.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was a delight! Whimsical but not flimsy; the central character, Penny, and supporting characters are all eccentric in their own ways grounded by the reality of their existing and developing connections to one another. The story hangs together via a couple of road trips that represent journeys of grieving, letting go, and turning toward the future and towards each other. If I have a single complaint it is that it ended too soon!

[Wade · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could have DNF’ed, but really want to make an effort to read all of the women’s prize for fiction this year. Nothing remarkable or profound here. This was just not for me.

[Isobel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penny is in her thirties, recently divorced, and left to deal with her grandparents who are both in need of new homes — her beloved grandfather is being neglected by his selfish younger wife, while social services are threatening to get involved if her mean and difficult hermit of a grandmother doesn’t give up the gun she has been brandishing to keep people away from her rat infested home.

I absolutely loved this. Mckenzie is able to perfectly weave together both the banal and the absurd in a way that is very natural and replicates life in a way that I don’t think I’ve come across in a novel before. All the misunderstandings and awkwardness that are usually left out of fiction.

The result is that even while the story has a lot of drama, it is all very believable and had me really rooting for the characters. Such an enjoyable read. I particularly loved the scene where Penny is washing a wig in the bathroom of Dale’s office building and turns to see a woman spying on her. So outlandish but something I could imagine happening, hilarious.

[Randi B · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a lot. Chaotic and quirky. The main character has anxiety and by the end of the book you will too. There’s just so much going on, an absurd amount. And was there a point? I’m not exactly sure.

Penny is separated from her husband, broke, and dealing with her manic grandmother Dr.Pincer, who happens to be a hoarder. In the midst of trying to sneak folks in to clean up the house, Penny befriends Pincers accountant Burt, the owner of “The dog of the north”- a shabby van. Burt falls ill and after a series of unfortunate events Penny finds herself living in The dog if the north. For even more context, her mom and stepdad have been missing for years, her biological dad is a creep, and so many more things. This was just the tip of the iceberg.

I am exhausted and unsettled after reading this, nothing bad, it just never let up. Quite fantastical, yea that’s the word. I’m glad we didn’t pick this one for bookclub.

[Sofia]

The arrow on the cover reminds me of the wind vane many of our houses have on the roof. And like a confused wind this weather vane turns round and round and back again not sure where the wind is coming from.

This is how I felt with this book, a deluge of problems with hardly a breath in between and as I'm looking for stillness I had to decide to let go.................................