Barking Dogs

by Rebekah Clarkson

Everybody thinks they know this story. But do they really?

If you took a bird’s-eye view of Mount Barker, you’d see ordinary Australians living on their ordinary suburban blocks in an ordinary regional town. Get closer. Peer through a window. You might see Nathan Long, obsessively recording the incessant bark of a neighbourhood dog, or the Wheeler family sitting down for a meal and trying to come to terms with a shocking discovery. If you listen, you may hear tales of fathers and their wayward sons, of widows who can’t forgive themselves, of children longed for and lost, of thwarted lust and of pure, incorruptible love. Within the shadows is an unspeakable crime.

Rebekah Clarkson has created a compelling, slow-burning portrait of a town in the midst of major change as it makes the painful transformation from rural idyll to aspirational suburbia. What looked like redemption is now profound loss. What seemed spiteful can now be forgiven.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Book Club

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2017

About the author

Rebekah Clarkson’s short stories have been recognised in major awards, shortlists and independent publications in Australia and overseas. She was runner-up in the 2013 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Adelaide, where she also teaches.

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

”We all pretend we don’t remember. We all pretend. We don’t even admit to this, to the pretending.”

“Grim” is the word that came to mind reading this collection of short stories. It’s just what popped into my head over the weekend as I settled in with a cuppa to start reading it. And this is not meant in a negative sense at all. It’s probably not the right word either. I enjoyed reading these stories, though “enjoy” isn’t the correct word either.

This is a realistic fly on the wall view of life in the burbs. The stories describe the everyday-humdrum-I-am-losing-it-even-though-I’m-trying-hard-not-to theme. The gritting your teeth and biting your tongue while getting on with things, slice of life existence. Wondering why things have gone askew even though you had such big dreams and plans.

”Oh, the tedium ahead; the inevitability of it all.”

Thirteen stories make up this little collection. That stood out to me.  Like the word “grim”. Unlucky for some? I’m not fussed by that particular superstition. I just couldn’t help but wonder if the number was planned or a fluke.

Mt. Barker, South Australia. A quiet town that is slowly undergoing change. Progress. Evolution. Whatever you want to call it. A place where "…we lie awake at night on our Harvey Norman beds in our cardboard houses." Where a Maccas drive-through and KFC will replace the generational businesses that have gone bust. Where not everyone is a local anymore. And even those that are don’t necessarily fit in. There’s an OPSM, along with a myriad of other cut price optometrists, known more for their two-for-one offers than for caring, personal service. New sprawling estates - filled with McMansions - are being built, replacing older, solid homes with gardens. The face and façade is changing.

People are moving from the big city to the Adelaide Hills for the peace and quiet. For the values a smaller town can provide. For the lush greenness. To either retire or start afresh. For the kids have a safer place to grow up.

”Children shouldn’t be in cities. They should be in nature.”

But of course there will always be issues where people are involved. Breakdowns of families and relationships. Friendships gone by the wayside. Regret. Illness and sadness. Infidelity. Guilt. Death. Grief. You cannot move anywhere to avoid these. That’s life, isn’t it.

”It’s Wednesday, which is tuna pasta. The knowledge of this is comforting. – some things stay the same. You can rely on them.”

The stories provide an interesting insight into the collective psyche of people. Why some (children included) are accepted, while others are not. Even if they haven’t necessarily done anything wrong. They’re just not the right fit. We feel comfortable when people are the same as us. We see how folk cope with what life throws at them. Or try to anyhow.

Why is there so much truth in the line “bad things happen to good people”? As is so poignantly and dejectedly put:

”It could serve as a small reminder that bad things happen to good people, that you are not always in control, that shit happens, that…wait for it…life is like a box of chocolate. Yes, someone actually said that to me. At your funeral.”

There is a story written for the book’s title Barking Dogs which stood out. An ordinary family. Two parents, one child, a dog. That barks. Incessantly. From when the family leave in the morning for work and school, til their return. It gets to the point where their elderly neighbour is too scared to leave her home or enjoy her garden because of the noise. It frightens her. It shows how easy it is to lose a friendship over a misunderstanding, and how difficult it is to win it back.

And the irony is, Jasper is actually a very sweet dog. Hardly a menacing (or ferocious) creature at all. It's all about perception.

The frustration of hearing dogs yapping – usually when life is being particularly trying – is a theme that pops up across the stories. Suburbia. The noises that eat into your brain. Even in the Adelaide Hills. And why is that the noises are always louder and more frustrating when things aren’t going particularly well? There will be consequences.
 
” ‘Those bloody dogs.’ He said it through his teeth.”

Friends, family and community. Feelings that slip away. Attitudes that change. How much is bubbling away inside us, that we keep to ourselves, especially our fears. The internal conversations we have with ourselves, which usually aren’t particularly positive. These stories expose and shine a light on all that. They're like looking through somebody's kitchen window.

”You can love someone so much that it actually hurts.”

Rebecca Clarkson has threaded the stories so that characters feature across several of them. It's possible (though not always obvious) to join the dots between them. A lot of it was subtle and easy to miss. I felt that it was cleverly done. The incidental interactions between people. How we impact other people's lives without being aware of it. There's always a footprint left behind.

What I Wished is another story which stood out, with its dreamlike, heavy quality. It definitely cut too close to the bone and was very uncomfortable. A sign of good writing is to get those feelings onto paper so the reader feels them. It sure hit me hard. It deals with the diagnosis of an illness and subsequent death of one of the characters. Somehow it’s described too well, and this hurt all the more for it. The sense of inertia, and the waiting for the inevitable. The disbelief and hope. The blank emptiness afterwards. How time seems to stand still or be in slow motion.

”Every day for the past week they’ve said it could be ‘today’.“

”Grief manifests in all sorts of ways, she said. Apparently, you have to keep tabs on it, to monitor it. I suppose she thinks I’m depressed.“

There really isn't anything uplifting about these stories, as they have an underlying sense of sadness. And yet they're worth reading because they’re just like life. Routine, mundane and frustrating, with the little bursts of hope and happiness that seem to make things worthwhile.

This book was part of our Bookclub’s “Travels around Australia”, so I had to ponder if it seemed to be quintessentially South Australian. I have to say yes, for no particular reason. There’s nothing I can put my finger on, but there’s just something about some of the descriptions of the neighborhoods and the way people speak and interact with each other, that reminded me of a holiday I had there once, long ago. It’s a very pretty state, with a very different pace and lifestyle (to Sydney), and to me this book captured that.

3 full stars ⭐ Reality bites.

”You are a mystery, even to yourself.”

[Michael Livingston · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of interlinked stories painting a portrait of Mt Barker, a small SA town. The links between the stories were pretty inessential - really just making the point that the book was as much about the town as about any of the individual characters. The stories come from a range of perspectives and tackle classic themes: family, loneliness and death but especially the trials and tribulations of suburbia - the shoddy McMansions, annoying neighbours and loneliness of living in the cookie cutter developments that surround Australia's cities. I found too many of the stories lacking in any real hook to draw me in - they're 'good' stories, but I wasn't moved of affected by many of them. A solid debut from a promising writer.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live close to Mount Barker in South Australia, which is the setting for this enjoyable, but disturbing, expose of life in a once small, but now fast growing, community. Mount Barker is 35km from Adelaide. Once a country town, it is now among the fastest growing communities in Australia. The truth in this book is both entertaining and alarming. The expose of life inside the sprawling housing estates of Mount Barker could not have been more insightful or closer to the truth. With real locations and reflections of actual local attitudes, values and people, it seemed that only the names had been changed to cover it off as fiction. In fact, I found myself putting names of actual people I know to some of the characters!
Barking Dogs is a series of connected short stories about various people within the new housing estates of Mount Barker. A constantly barking dog, the disappearance and murder of a local girl, cheap construction, aspirational families and suburban habits connect the characters with a mix of sadness, poignancy and despair. Every time I'm in Mount Barker I see people who could well fit the characters of the book.
I liked the book because it so accurately reflected the community, but you don't have to know Mount Barker to enjoy it. It could well be about any suburban sprawl anywhere in Australia!
It is interesting to note that the spread of housing estates, with "affordable" homes, built close together on small blocks is a social challenge to Mount Barker. Additionally, the local Council reports that as a result, the complaints about barking dogs are up some 150% over the past decade.
A terrific read. I hope the author finds more stories to write about this area.

[Michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't help myself with this collection of inter-related short stories set in local Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills. These stories are full of Adelaide-isms so definitely one to read if you have lived in Adelaide or the surrounding hills at some point in your life. These short stories tell the struggle of a once rural town in the midst of it's shift to a thriving suburbia and the invasion of shoe-box subdivisions.



I really enjoyed the eclectic mix of characters. In Barking Dogs we get all ages, genders and walks of life. Some characters are all too likeable, some not so much. I really enjoyed trying to pieces together all the connections and little mysteries contained within the threads of the stories. Barking Dogs is an honest representation of real life - the ups and the downs, the tragedies and struggles and of course the simple pleasures. 



There is a great little twist at the end of the collection, something that ties it all together. This was a collection of stories that I could pick up again and again and glean something new from it each time. An enjoyable, fun little treasure of everyday suburban life and one I recommend to try even if you haven't read short stories before, a new adventure worth trying. I give Barking Dogs four suburban houses. 

[Alyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I sort of hated this, I'm not a huge fan of short stories and it was basically a collection of unrelated short stories about random people who lived in the same town. Some of the chapters were written in first person, some in third person and some in second person!! You are very annoyed. You felt like you were reading a Goosebumps choose-your-own-adventure. You would not recommend, although there was nothing wrong with the characters or the writing other than that.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book. I just didn't care enough about the characters or the story (which story? Was there a common thread I was missing? Did I have to wait til the end for it? I didn't care enough to bother finding out).

Although the writer's style is very good technically, I felt weighed down by the minutiae. Detail can be good but it can also make you feel like you're being dragged through something. Four pages of cooking fish fingers when I knew what the result was seems like cruelty to the reader.

Also I appreciate the author was trying to draw the township and the community, but the specific references to names, place and brands (why was it PURA milk specifically? Couldn't it just be milk?) made me uncomfortable. It was like she wrote the book and then went back and added as many local references as possible. Maybe it's because I live near the city and I prefer to get lost in a book rather than read about the characters driving though the same suburbs as me and getting their petrol where I do. I'd prefer vaguer references (like going to just "the hospital" rather than the name of the hospital).

Like I said, she's a good writer, and I appreciate her great descriptive skill, but this book jut wasn't for me.

[Angela Kingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeously written 'novel in stories' set in Mount Barker is a must for anyone who's grown up in the ever-growing Australian suburban sprawl. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll recognise yourself and others (not always a comfortable experience). Clarkson has a wonderful way with words and a compelling, subtle style. Her descriptions are wonderfully evocative, eg. 'The rain pulled back as quickly as it had started ... It became strangely quiet, as if the heavens were recoiling form their own outburst. Everything around them softly ticked, like a resting engine when the ignition is cut.' - 'Mary's presence was gone. Dwelling on this made him sad but also awkward and strangely constricted, like the childhood memory of wearing a skivvy, or as if his skin had been badly sunburnt.' The connections between stories are satisfying and well-executed, bringing a modern community to life. A simply fabulous debut novel.

[Roisin Meaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boy, what a solidly good read. Rebekah Clarkson’s way with words is formidable. She’s beautifully subtle in the way she interweaves her stories – I was constantly flicking pages, having found another tiny, teasing connection to a previous story that I wanted to identify and savour. I suspect that with each re-reading of Barking Dogs (and there will be re-readings) I’ll find more connections and interlinkings (which definitely is a word somewhere on the planet). Her characters are scarily real, her writing style and dialogue are equally delicious. There is no fault to be found in this debut (but not really debut) offering. Her many awards for the stories’ previous incarnations bear more solid testament to her writerly (yes, also a word) accomplishment than this little review can. More please.

PS I will not be moving to live in Mount Barker anytime soon.

[Lauren Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly impressive collection from a debut writer. Clarkson not only has great insight, but also considerable writing chops. Her voice is identifiable-- clear, unadorned, always at the service of her stories. There is a sense of over-arching vision in the work; although the stories aren't connected by character, the reader is aware Clarkson has her eye on a wide field.

I recommend the book, and also this review... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh....

[Kathy Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully crafted book which gives profound insight into the impact of suburban living in the face of development - of how life used to be, what it has become now, and how we are affected by that. The stories are brought to life by the attention to detail of each character, and the way we are transported into the hearts and minds of them through their everyday lives. Beautifully written with a perfect balance of sadness and often ironic humour, this book will be a much loved addition to my shelf.

[Madeleine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cycle of short stories set in Mt Barker perfectly captures the dysfunction of the suburban middle class in Australia. The way Clarkson nails the particular brand of Australian masculinity is impressive.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that it was set in Mt Barker, and not an idealised Mt Barker but a suburban, aiming to be "hills" kind of a modern realist dystopia....and yet...are people in Mt Barker really that unhappy? It seemed as though in every story people had massive loneliness, disconnect from partners, ennui with work and consumption being their whole world. There may be people like that, I have met someone from Mt Barker who does seem exactly like that but I would hope that's a small minority, or that you could also look at them and see common-place happinesses and connections too.

At times it seemed as snarky as "History of the world in modern objects" which I am also reading, at other times it seemed merely depressed. I was irritated to see in the acknowledgements that the author wanted to make the first person mentioned cry. Is that the aim of writing? To induce tears? And wouldn't it be better then to mix it up a bit? Tragedy is tragic because there is some hope or experience of something better, this book is just bleak and unsatisfied lives of unhappy ants that will breed and go on until they set their planet on fire and then die. I can see the temptation to see that as "real" but is it a useful narrative prolonged over so many stories?

Nevertheless having a South Australian setting was convincing and enjoyable. I chose to read the comments in 2 of the stories about Biddulph's writing as snark/criticism and then I could relate to it. I did like the way barking dogs featured again and again, not in a heavy-handed way but enough to contextualise the title (and other stories also dealt with the same sort of cumulative nuisances as barking dogs).

I'm bad with sub-texts and this author seems to have won a lot of prizes and inclusions with these stories so I will assume I did not understand everything this anthology was trying to tell me.

[Tricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of interconnected short stories set in a small community. The stories are told from different perspectives.

I thought it was ok but not something I would recommend to others. It does get quite dark in places.

[Suzy Dominey · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was short stories of which I am not a fan but it drew me in as I knew the area it was set in

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way to describe Rebekah Clarkson’s debut book, Barking dogs, is that it’s a portrait of a community undergoing social change. This community is Mount Barker on the outskirts of Adelaide. Once a farming community, it is now, says Wikipedia, “one of the fastest growing areas in the state”, the province of developers, the aspirational and the upwardly mobile, rich pickings in other words for an observant novelist. And Clarkson is one observant writer. For my complete review, please check out: https://whisperinggums.com/2017/06/14...

[Jules · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel ambivalent about Barking Dogs. I agree with the criticism from others that these stories are good but not great, and I feel that as a collection they lacked potency. There were enough passages within each story that read as beautiful snapshots of observation to encourage met to finish the book, but I didn't connect with any of the characters; I doubt this will prove to be a memorable read for me.

[Josephine Spawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book by one of our local authors. Raw and real the book reminds us all that we have no idea what really happens behind closed doors, the complexity of relationships and how we are all just doing our best to get by. A must read

[Kristin Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barking Dogs is a beautifully written novel in short stories. The characters and stories have stayed with me for weeks now.

[Kerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an anthology of connected short stories written over half a decade or so. Not only are they connected with some characters appearing in or referred to in more than one story, they nearly all focus on the Adelaide hills town of Mt Barker, currently undergoing incredible change with an influx of new residents, in a myriad of new housing "estates".

The book does not qualify in my mind as crime fiction, although there are plenty of mysteries to be unravelled, and certainly a crime or two committed. Between them the stories explore a range of contemporary issues: the pressures of modern living on young families, the onset of dementia, the effects of death from cancer on a family, barking dogs. Older folk, long time residents, live cheek by jowl with newly arrived families with younger children.

The stories were of particular interest to me because it is an area we travel through every weekend. We have friends who've moved from suburban Adelaide into one of the new Mt. Barker estates. Over the years we have seen farmland sold, cleared, scoured and subdivided into new estates with improbable names. These stories remind the reader that not every rainbow leads to a pot of gold.

The publisher refers to this anthology as a "novel in stories", but I beg to differ. It is as if somehow a "novel" brings higher acclamation. These stories are well crafted and cleverly written. But they don't have a completeness, or denouement, that a novel tries to achieve. In a sense too there is plenty of room left for further stories.

Just one thing extra I could have wished for - a table of contents at the beginning listing the stories by title.

[Kylie Purdie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barking Dogs is a collection of short stories all set in Mt Barker, a town in the Adelaide Hills. They are all loosely linked, some simply by location, others by character. It's a series of snap shots of just about any town I imagine - secrets and stories waiting to be discovered if only you look.
I found it to be a fairly easy read, but I wouldn't be able to point to one of the stories being more engaging than the other, no character that stood out, but they were all enjoyable. A few of the stories feel like they could be the basis of longer form fiction, others just a peek into someone's life. A nice easy summer read.

[Malcolm Frawley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is an auspicious debut. Ms Clarkson's exploration of humanity, specifically Australian humanity, is perceptive, surprising (& occasionally shocking) &, most importantly, full of compassion. All set in a fictional suburb that many of us will recognise they feature flawed, but completely believable, characters. The only quibble, & the author had no control over it, is the publisher's claim on the back of the jacket that these 'linked' stories comprise a novel. This is absolutely not the case. But the writing is great. Highly recommended.

[Victoria Emerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essentially, this book is a collection of short stories set in the same Australian regional town. The blurb of the book made me excited to read this, however it just didn’t work. Each chapter focussed on different characters and just when their stories were getting interesting, the chapter would end and we’d be onto another character. If you’re not a fan of short stories, I would not suggest this book.

[Jane Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between a 3 and a 4. I really enjoyed these stories. I live close by to Mt Barker and have worked there in the past and found the stories reflect the people and place. Some of the stories were like those of Raymond Carver but never with quite the same bite. A good first book.

[Bazz Sherwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories loosely connected by all being set in Mt Barker, a country town quickly becoming a sprawling suburb of the City of Adelaide. The stories are sometimes sad, sometimes cruel, sometimes heartwarming, but always skillfully written and absorbing.

[MisterHobgoblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barking Dogs is a rather superior collection of short stories set in what I had thought to be a remote (fictional) town of Mt Barker, South Australia - but it turns out to be a real and growing town only 30 or so kilometres from Adelaide. For those who don't know, South Australia is age serial killer capital of Australia and Mt Barker has its own chapter in this canon with the disappearance and presumed murder of a schoolgirl.

These stories intersect. Characters from one story will star in another; incidents central to one story will be referred to in another. It's about small town life where people live in each other's pockets and keep glimpsing one another even though they barely know each other.

And the people of Mt Barker are tragic-comic. The Summit Club - a group of unemployed and semi-employed men who do good deeds regardless of whether they are wanted; the man who buys trophies from internet retail sites to sell at his bricks and mortar shop; the people driven to a frenzy by barking dogs. The reader laughs at the trivial things that matter to them but at the same time, acknowledges that if you are stuck in some Godawful small town in remote SA, there's not much more than trivia to bother with.

My only criticism is that the timeline, as measured by proximity to the disappeared girl, seems to jump around a bit. That, ultimately, is what makes this stories rather than a novel.

[Anne Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review at http://annejenner.net/barking-dogs/

[Joana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful return to short fiction

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times heart rending and totally real, these stories give us glimpses into the life of this town. Particularly, the story about the grand-mother baby-sitting her grand-son just broke my heart.

[Jacinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Mt Barker, these are a string of short stories with some threads to connect some characters. Each story is intense and the characters are making do with their lot. Sad making.

[Lee Welch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing and complex, yet such clarity of phrase! And it still feels weirdly refreshing to read a book set where you live....