The Dog Star

by Donald Windham

A novel of Atlanta in the 1930s

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Literature, Gay

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

His obituary-of-record here has a good summary of his personal and creative life.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...(This) is the story of 15-year old Blackie Pride, a protagonist who idealizes indifference and is hard to sympathize with; yet we do. Consumed by his memories of Whitie Maddox, a recent suicide at their juvenile detention school, Blackie increasingly holds what he considers the frailty and weakness of his friends and family in contempt. He roams the streets of Atlanta's 1930s inner-city of 'dry earth littered with chewing gum and candy bar wrappers, ice cream cups and wooden spoons, cigarettes and contraceptive packages' until he meets his tragic end. His is a story of the search for identity..." From the back cover of my 1998 Hill Street Classics paperback edition of this novel.

Donald Windham is, unfortunately, one of those truly great writers who despite critical praise when his novels were first published and attempts to create and/or revive interest in his works by republishing them always slips back into the realms of the forgotten and overlooked. Even writing and publishing one of the earliest and finest novels about a 'gay' man 'Two People' in 1965 didn't do him any good; it was forgotten for over forty years. Apparently the USA only had room for one Southern 'gay' writer back then, Truman Capote, whose cliched magnolia and moonlight confections sucked all the praise away from any other Southern writer. That Capote is now better known for the time he spent with ridiculously fatuous nonentities like Babe Paley, C.Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill and Slim Keith is perhaps the universe having the last laugh on Capote.

Windham didn't throw a famous Black and White ball and he didn't create a sensation with an epicene author's photograph. What he did was write superbly. As a first novel Dog Star is so far ahead of Other Voices Other Rooms as to be an embarrassment to the latter. It is a superb and brilliant novel of the bildungsroman and a reminder, like Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther that the getting of wisdom doesn't always have a happy ending.

Although very 'allusively homoerotic' it is not properly a 'gay' or even queer novel (though I have shelved it as queer-interest). I have seen reviewers saying that a female character should be read as male, but Windham in his 1998 Afterword (available in my edition) makes no mention of this. I don't think you can read Blackie as a proto gay boy - such a reading is out of step with the 1930's. The reality was a boy like Blackie could easily love another boy yet still have sex with a girl. Neither loving the boy nor having sex with the girl would have been seen by Blackie as defining events. It is worth comparing these attitudes with those in the much later 'Hard Rain Falling' by Don Carpenter. The attitude of Blackie in 'The Dog Star' and Jack in Hard Rain Falling towards sex is interchangeable.

But if it helps, read Dog Star as 'gay' novel, but read it. This is a beautiful novel; poignant and deeply felt. It is more than anything else an examination of existential search. I could go on but really what is important is to discover Donald Windham as a writer, who was a greater swan then any of the rich trash Capote wasted his talent on.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Windham was an author of gay-themed novels and memoirs, and achieved significant status among fellow writers with his perceptive and beautifully written books. His works are nearly completely forgotten today, except by those readers interested in top-notch writing applied to gay themes.

The Dog Star is a Southern gothic-style classic, and when it was published in 1950 it received the acclaim of Tennessee Williams:

I think it marks the advent of probably the most distinguised new talent to appear in the last decade. Its theme is of relevance to modern youth. The writing is utterly pure without the affectation of purity. It is the creation of an unadulterated artist.

Windham's style is a curious blend of Faulkner and Capote, and the latter's Other Voices, Other Rooms, which appeared in 1948 to great success, clearly influenced Windham in his writing. The dialog reads like a play script with rapid-fire exchanges and cutting words, much like Williams' plays.

The usual gothic themes are all here: dark, foreboding atmospheres, plenty of soaking rain, lurid landscapes, repulsive people, degeneration of culture and society, and deep wells of loneliness. I was pleased also to discover a foreshadowing of Cormac McCarthy in the last two chapters where darkness and insanity crushingly descend, much like McCarthy's first two novels The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark published some fifteen years later.

As with most gay-themed books issued in the 1940s and 1950s, the fundamental theme of homosexuality is heavily coded throughout, and to sell the volumes, the publishers included a drawing of a teenage boy on the cover, a coded description of the book (I added this to the book description of the first-edition here on Goodreads) and the following:

Donald Windham has handled his theme surely and sensitively, with a fine feeling for the motives, passions, and desires of a lonely boy groping for security in a complex and corrupt world.

It's fun to decode this wonderful little riddle with today's more open understanding: "Sensitively" means Windham was gay, "fine feeling" means he went through a tough childhood too due to his sexuality, "lonely boy" means "gay boy", and "security" means acceptance.

Gender shifting is also there, again typical of books at that time, and certainly in Tennessee Williams' plays. I won't spoil the plot for anyone wishing to read and enjoy the book, but while you are reading, you should feel that at least one female character is actually intended to be male.

The book suffers from some confusing temporal interleaving and awkward punctuation, but the final two chapters are a powerfully moving description of what happens even today from the oppression of homosexuality.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dog Star, set in Atlanta in the late 1930's, puts its hero in a typical Southern city of about 400,000 inhabitants. This absorbing tale follows the thoughts and footsteps of Blackie Pride as he wanders city streets, checks in on friends and family, and hangs out at the parks, movie houses and dance halls typical of this era of moonshine, wood frame houses and five cent sodas. After a friend's recent death, he has demons to escape from. But can the callow teen get away from one particular demon chasing him? Run, Blackie, don't walk!

A couple of reviews have made insightful remarks. Peter noted the existential aspect of the novel. The story has a fork in the road, and Blackie faces a decision - a typical existential motif. Typical, too, is the lack of any real way to decide. Blackie's cogitations get him nowhere, achieve nothing. Over the long, hot summer weeks he thinks about his dead pal and what their closeness now means. But another existential theme, absurdity, pushes back at every effort to grab hold of any such meaning.

Another reviewer, Chris, noted that at least one female character should be read as male. Certain parts of Blackie's peregrination make more sense that way. Homoeroticism is muted in the story, though woven into many scenes involving Blackie's lost friend, his brother Caleb, and even an assault on a deserted street. Working in 1950 during the Lavender Scare, the author wrote elliptically about a decisive part of the story. It's entirely possible, in fact, to read the book without seeing the subtext.

The linear, modernist style feels like something by Faulkner. It makes for a memorable, evenly paced story. The prose is strong, descriptive and balanced. The characters are well drawn - Blackie for his part doesn't allow readers to like him, yet he's impossible to hate. The incidents of the story are realistic and believable, setting readers down right into the working class Atlanta of the thirties. The author shows good control over the narrative. So this is more than a good story; it's good literature.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad I read this book but for some reason I just did not love it. Blackie, who is the main character was hard work. He had a ton of ambition, drive, and energy, for one so young, but just made everything so damn hard. Most of the characters in this are not super likable either. They are psychic vampires with not a lot to offer to anyone. This is a typical coming of age story, which was written by a southern author who also happened to be gay. There was not too much gay innuendo in this book as far as I could tell. Blackie is a ne'er do well, who is also a bit of a loner and likes to make life hard for himself. His life does not have to be as hard as he makes it. The other characters sort of come in and out of the picture and Blackie and all of his angst ridden thoughts are kept as the main focus. The ending of this story was a super let down but perhaps it was indicative of the times. Anyway, it was not an entirely worthless read and was entertaining as a typical coming of age story. It was really nothing special though.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing and lovely descriptions of 1930's Atlanta, but the protagonist was just insufferable and I didn't care what happened to him.

[Dietmar Leibecke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein legitimer Nachfolger von Salingers Catcher in the Rye!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the sultry heat of the Dog Days in prewar Atlanta, a teenager tries somehow to make sense of his life in the aftermath of his best friend’s suicide. But The Dog Star – first published in 1950 – is not the coming-of-age story one might expect, nor is it particularly southern, nor is it particularly gay-themed (as were Donald Windham’s later works) though there are certainly undercurrents. Rather surprisingly, it is an existentialist novel, as we follow Blackie Pride’s obsessive and ultimately destructive attempt to live, by force of will, on his own terms.

For most teenagers, Donald Windham’s Atlanta would be a dream come true. Blackie walks out of reform school (apparently without pursuit or retribution), returns to his rather louche family who don’t seem to give a damn what he does, stocks up on cigarettes, beer, and bootleg whisky, sleeps around with an easy-going girl with her own apartment, hangs out with some low-lifes, shoots crap, picks up a few dollars working – and all at the age of fifteen. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield... But Blackie wants to be the image of his lost friend (rather lamely called Whitey) and adopt his ”strength and greatness and indifference” – all masculine qualities, apparently. It is action not words that appeals to Blackie, but his self-obsessed determination to become strong and great and indifferent is predictably doomed. The fact that ”the failing of others to see him as he saw himself angered him” shows just how poorly he comes to grips with the “indifference” part...and “strength” and “greatness” don’t fare much better.

Poor Blackie. But he is the author of his own misfortunes and, throughout the novel, his increasing egotism, arrogance, and misplaced misogyny make him a hard character to like or empathize with. On the last page, a passer-by calls him ”some damn fool”, which might serve as a sort of epitaph...though the reader may have thought the same a lot earlier. For a first novel, Donald Windham’s prose is assured and the dusty sweat and heat of old Atlanta are effectively conjured up. But a classic of southern literature? Not really.

[Shannon Yarbrough · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a fan of Southern literature, The Dog Star has been one of those books I often come across but just haven't been motivated to read. After learning of Donald Windham's close friendship with Truman Capote after reading the collection of Truman's letters (Too Brief a Treat) by Gerald Clarke, I decided it was time. While I'm glad I read it, I wasn't overly impressed.

The Dog Star is the story of a young man named Blackie who becomes troubled by the sudden suicide of his close friend at reform school. Blackie decides to leave the reform school and go home. What follows is a very linear storyline that is is a bit disjointed, conveying Blackie's troubled relationships with his family and friends, and even with himself.

We meet his mother and siblings, and though he appears to be closer to his sister Pearl, she has problems of her own that are equal to Blackie's. We see Blackie form a sexual relationship with an older woman, but he does not want to be "tied down" so he is rude to her and distances himself from her. And we see Blackie form bonds with other young men in the neighborhood, all of which could lead to legal problems. Other than some light gambling, Blackie also keeps his distance.

The problem is, like Blackie, the reader doesn't know where he's going. Blackie is stuck in that juvenile delinquent stage that many teenagers face after high school. They seek affection, but they are afraid of settling down or lack emotional stability. They have to look for a job, but still want to have fun. They often get into trouble. They are lost souls literally roaming the street to find the answers to life's questions. And most of all, they lack patience.

While Windham captures this fragile and sad state of a teenager perfectly, the story lacks depth. Like I said, it's a bit linear and lacks conflict other than that which Blackie experiences within himself, and which leads to the odd and sad conclusion of the book. As an English major, it was interesting to read a book from the 1950's and see the different grammatical nuances and punctuation used back then. I'm glad I can finally mark this book off my to-read list, but I would not highly recommend it to anyone else.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second time that I have read this novel and I still don't know what to think about it. Written in a clear revealing style, this is a coming of age story regarding Blackie Pride, a 15 year old runaway from an all boys reform school. Windham's attention to detail is absolutely amazing and the way he captures Blackie's thought process is part of the charm of the book. The novel starts with Blackie as he walks away from the school but his thoughts are firmly focused on another youth, Whitey, that had suddenly committed suicide. Set in Atlanta in the 1930's, this book surprises the reader with it's easy attention to details, all the while revealing it's protagonist as a extremely complicated character. Do we ever get to see the true character of Blackie or are we merely watching the shadows on a cave wall? Often his actions and his thoughts are in direct opposition to each other which makes for an usual pulse of anxiety to flow throughout the book. If you enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye then this book is your cup of tea.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seem to be reading a lot of coming-of-age novels lately. This one is the story of a 15-year-old boy growing up in Atlanta. While the author was a gay man, who wrote other novels with decidedly gay themes, there are no such obvious themes in this book. Blackie does have a sort of hero worship of Whitey, his friend from reform school whom he patterns his life after, and the book hints at a close, perhaps romantic relationship between the two, but when he returns to Atlanta he is in a sexual relationship with a woman. It's possible, as some suggest, that Windham intended this female character to be read as male - that because of the time he was writing, he was unable (or unwilling) to write the characters as gay. But it's also possible that the characters and their feelings - emotional, romantic, sexual - were intended to be read just as they are in the novel.

This was, at times, a difficult story to follow. There are several instances where time shifts - either one day moves into the next, or Blackie experiences a flashback - but I didn't pick up on the shift right away and got confused.

[Klaus Mattes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Atlanta (Georgia) in der dreißiger Jahren; Genre: nur angedeutete Liebesgeschichte zweier junger Männer, die in den Untergang führt.

So viele Jahre sind seit Donald Windhams Tod, 2010, noch gar nicht verflossen. Und doch gehört dieser Autor, den in Deutschland im Jahr 2010 mehr oder weniger niemand kannte, zu einer längst vergangenen Zeit. Er wird mittlerweile als eine der bedeutendsten Figuren der frühen Tage einer offen schwulen Literatur in den USA gehandelt. Aus naheliegenden Gründen und weil man ihn als Stilisten schätzte, wurde er um 1950 herum sogar von den Nobelpreisträgern André Gide und Thomas Mann empfohlen. Die damals also noch lebten. Man stutzt; Gide las ihn und tot ist er erst seit ein paar Jahren, kann das denn sein? Ja, der Mann wurde 90 Jahre alt! Windham war ein Südstaatler aus Georgia, lebte die meiste Zeit seines Lebens in New York und arbeitete als Literaturwissenschaftler. Er verkehrte in jenen bisexuellen und schwulen Intellektuellenzirkeln, deren Mitglieder meist Jahre vor ihm schon zur Anerkennung in Mitteleuropa gelangten: Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Carl Van Vechten, Paul Cadmus, Pavel Tchelitchew, George Platt Lynes, mit denen er zum Teil gemeinsame künstlerische Projekte realisieren konnte.

Ich stelle mir jemanden mit einer sehr gut ausgestatteten Bibliothek schwuler Klassiker vor. Da würde man „Dog Star“ zwischen William Maxwell, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams und James Purdy einstellen. Und ich würde sagen: Er ähnelt ihnen nicht nur, sondern er ist schon auch der Schwächste unter ihnen, insofern nicht von ungefähr so lange übersehen worden. Erzählt wird im Buch vom Erwachsenwerden eines vaterlosen Jungen, Blackie genannt, der in einem von Frauen, Mutter und ältere Schwester, dominierten Haushalt aufwächst und in mit treuherzigen Art fast hündisch ergebenen Anschluss an den Blackie sucht. Den verliert er aber wieder und stürzt sich in Verbrechen, Sucht, Wahnsinn und Tod.

Offenkundig ist dieses Buch während verschiedener Phasen entwickelt worden, in denen der Autor vielleicht die Lust verlor, jedenfalls beim Weitermachen die Genres geradezu auswechselte, als wären es verschiedene Paar Schuhe. Anfangs eine verträumte Sommergeschichte mit zwei Jungs, die viel schwimmen, die Luft scheint geschwängert, doch es passiert nahezu nichts; man wird schon ungeduldig. Später überrascht das Buch mit einer Prise Surrealismus, wie man ihn am ehesten von James Purdy kennt. Dann will es offenbar wieder handfester werden und fährt ein bisschen Crime und Sex auf. Diese merkwürdigen Umschwünge stellen einen nicht wirklich zufrieden und hinterließen bei mir mehrfach den Eindruck, dem Autor sei sein Vorhaben über den Kopf gewachsen. Nun war es, obwohl Windhams Homosexualität unter Lesern damals schon offenes Geheimnis war, offenbar eine abgesprochene Sache, dass das Buch sein Thema, die männliche Homosexualität, stets in einer Verhüllung abhandeln sollte, die bei den schwulen Käufern keine Zweifel ließ, um was es da ging, während heterosexuelle Leser, falls sie es wünschten, tun konnten, als hätten sie nichts gemerkt. Man sollte sich vielleicht klarmachen, dass das erste Stück von Tennessee Williams, das das Homosexuelle offen ansprach, „Cat on a Hot Tin Roof“ erst 1955 und James Baldwins „Giovanni's Room“ erst 1956 herausgekommen sind, fünf Jahre nach „Dog Star“!

Obwohl Mutter und Schwester immer in der Nähe sind und Blackie eine normale Arbeit bekommt, wird er in eine Art Waisenhaus abgeschoben. Dort ist dann Whitey, der große, verwegene Kamerad. Whitey erklärt ihm, wie man die Frauen um den Finger wickelt. Dann einer dieser schier unfassbaren Sprünge des Buchs und Whitey hat sich umgebracht. Als Schwule könnten wir denken, er kam nicht mit seiner Homosexualität zurecht. Aber vielleicht unterstellen wir das nur, dem Buch wie dem Autor. Jetzt wollen Mutter und vor allem die Schwester, eine Frau, die selbst ständig Probleme mit ihren Männern hat, Blackies Leben wieder dirigieren. Noch ein Sprung und Blackie ist verheiratet und hat ein Kind. Er liebt seine Familie, will sie beschützen und ernähren und gleitet durch seine verbrecherischen Geschäfte immer weiter von ihr weg.

Rückblickend scheint Whitey schon ein Gangster gewesen zu sein. Blackie ist ihm wohl nur nachgefolgt. Er wird verprügelt, verspottet, gedemütigt. Und wieder kann man sich fragen, will der Autor, dass wir, ohne dass er es hinschreibt, heraus lesen, dass dieser Junge zur lächerlichen Figur gemacht werden soll, weil er seinen Whitey geliebt hat. Blackie kann so was nicht ertragen. Er startet einen Rachefeldzug; nur ist angesichts der Überzahl seiner Gegner und ihrer Vernetztheit klar, dass er nicht gewinnen wird. Am Ende wird er wahnsinnig, sieht Gespenster und geht in den Tod.

Der beste Teil vom Buch liegt, man merkt es leider erst in der Rückschau, in seinen ersten fünfzig Seiten. Die schläfrige, ihre Enthüllung stets vermeidende Verehrung Blackies für den Freund. Das mag man poetisch nennen. Bisweilen kommt einem der Ton aber auch „kindisch“ vor. So werden mittlerweile sogenannte „Young Adult“-Romanzen für schwule und andere Teenager vorgetragen. Das Lob mancher Rezensenten, Windham öffne den Einblick in die verborgensten Winkel männlicher Pubertät, kann ich nicht teilen. Ich bin zum Beispiel überzeugt, dass die verborgensten Winkel männlicher Pubertät irgendwo auch ziemlich viel Wichsen versteckt hätten.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Der leider unerträgliche Protagonist und für mich wenig ansprechende Schreibstil ziehen das Buch leider sehr runter. Die Handlung ist dabei in Ordnung, wobei die ersten beiden Kapitel noch am interessantesten sind.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this one to be less interesting and not as well written as Two People.

[Willeverett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oppressed by his best friend's death, Blackie Pride finds no other recourse for his malcontent. That about sums it up. There's something brave in the author's unwillingness to take this story into the usual terrain of "poor boy makes good." And I certainly appreciated the candid sexual descriptions, unusual for the time. But the story is too close to life itself, meaning somewhat flat and governed by random events. Blackie aspires to nothing special, and his death seems a contrived way out of a situation that a better young man might have fought against. Enjoyed the brisk pace and the simple but concrete descriptions. But something was lacking in the logical flow. I didn't understand why Blackie was beat up in the penultimate chapter or why (if?) this so traumatized him that he decided to give up. Critics call Blackie unsympathetic, but I found I cared about him quite a bit. It was his circumstances and decisions that I found hard to sympathize with.

[Eliza Osborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the narrative of this book, it kept me interested which made it a fast read for me. I would have liked to know more about the relationship between Blackie and Whitey, but I understand why it was kept vague.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this so flat I didn't finish it.

[Gina Redmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed very much