The Dog Catcher

by Alexei Sayle

The acclaimed BARCELONA PLATES revealed Alexei Sayle as a writer with an outstanding ability to describe contemporary life in an unusual way. Now, in his new collection THE DOG CATCHER, he brilliantly captures the morals and absurdities of our so-called 'cool' culture, populated by characters as recognizable as they are memorable. THE DOG CATCHER will confirm Alexei Sayle's reputation as not only one of the great exponents of the short story genre, but also as a profound commentator on the way we live now.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Humor, Comedy, Collections

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Alexei Sayle is an English stand-up comedian, actor, author and former recording artist, and was a central figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s.
Wikipedia

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the stories in Barcelona Plates, but still better than his novels.

Sayle’s schtick was the offbeat comic monologue, often with a touch of surrealism, which transfers well to the short story format. He can take a conceit, run with it, then quit while he’s still ahead.

[Jeremy Poole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sayle does it again, cynical and eye opening, questioning and making you laugh. This is intelligent comedy at its best.
My reviews of Indie books http://www.jeremypoole.net/blog.html

[milo · Rating 1 out of 5]

okay so I only read the titular short story but my GOD this was hard to read. shock/black comedy always at the expense of the female protagonist, who was hardly a character and more a collection of degrading stereotypes. Very much a comedy for gratifying the male gaze, really terrible to read for anyone who isn't male. also racist! supposedly for the purposes of satire, but the lack of voice from the indigenous characters only serves to reinforce a white elitist hegemony. definitely not my style of humor, lacking depth, and heavy handed in dealings of plot and character.

[Bass Tardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend reading this one before reading Barcelona Plates, which is "snappier".

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bizarre and brilliant

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully surreal, the best of the collection is the first tale about "The Dog Catcher" who purifies an isolated Spanish town of all its stray dogs in the autumn including immoral human 'dogs'. I gave it four stars because as a whole it is not as brilliant a collection as "Barcelona Plates".

[Kris McCracken · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent, if somewhat uneven collection of short stories. A bit heavy-handed at time, Sayle obviously relishes exposing the absurdities of modern 'cool' culture. Very dark in tone, I particularly recommend "The Only Man Stalin Was Afraid Of" and "The Mau Mau Hat".

Very much worth checking out.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent collection of short stories

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved mr sayle's humor since I first saw him in "the young ones" British tv series. A lot of fun, slightly communist styled humor. Well recommended

[Fay]

Funny and slightly twisted short stories. Not quite up there with Saki, but still a great book for getting plenty of odd looks on the train.

[Jonah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"PATRICK"

[Tony Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. Definately recommend.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great set of short stories by Alexei Sayle, who I think is under-rated as a writer.

Plenty of laugh out loud moments and surreal meanderings

Joyful.

[John Tetteroo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this little bundle in our local mini library. I was a little surprised because Alexei was one of the absolute comedy heroes of my youth. I knew him mainly because of the Young-Ones and his appearance as land-lord cum Benito Mussolini impersonator. My surprise was because I never knew him as a writer so I decided to take this book home where I decided to do some google research to find that I had missed out on a world of further content produced by this comedy multi-talent.

Nice! But what about the book or rather the short stories there-in. Well they range from darkly humorous (the Dog Catcher) to thoroughly absurd (The Mau Mau hat). You cannot deny the absolute craftsmanship with which these stories have been written, but they did not stick with me. After a week already it is hard to me to reproduce what the stories were about and what struck me as humorous or noteworthy, I have to revisit the book to remember. And that is ultimately what this book was to me, a nice diversion, but no world shattering genius in any way. Well OK I will remember the invention of the anti-muse. And so it comes to be that I say goodbye to my hero as fast as I found him again. Sometimes memories are better than re visitation.

Just nice to see that he did not sink back into oblivion but remained somewhat afloat, so I found myself watching Alexei vlogging his cycle rides through his home town.. sigh...

[AlexF · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, I enjoyed all of them which is pretty rare with this sort of thing, though the titular tale, "The Only Man Stalin Was Afraid Of" and "The Mau Mau Hat" were my favourites. 4.25/5

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag. Some stories seem like filler, but the imagination is unrivalled.

[Simon Vita · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the throwaway asides that make it for me.

[Thomas Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surely the product of a quite disturbed mind. An excellent collection of stories. A few of them for me were just okay, but several were really something - especially The Mau Mau hat.

[Andrew Ives · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read the plaudits from Douglas Adams and the Big Issue inside the dust jacket, you might be forgiven for thinking this is a masterpiece of wit that Oscar Wilde could only dream of. They are lies. Whilst Alexei is clearly a clever bloke who writes well, with an occasionally amusing turn of phrase or surreal metaphor, the 'short' stories collected here already date quite badly, are consistently grubby, and managed to elicit from me only the merest of smirks, and I usually felt ashamed at myself even for those. I wouldn't say the proofreading was particularly hot either. The stories are...

The Dog Catcher - Strongly Spanish-flavoured smut with a dark Hitchcockian ending. 2.5/5
Descending - Short Tour de France tale that I quite liked but it just ended too abruptly. 3.5/5
My Lucky Pig - London-based, weird and short tale about a voiceover artist. 3/5
Barcelona Chairs - London-based story about an up-his-own-a** architect. 3.25/5
A Cure For Death - A solid futuristic sci-fi idea marred by so much swearing at the end. 3/5
Who Died and Left You In Charge? - The most surreal London-based story of the lot. I almost liked this, but the ending, while funny-ish was kind of obvious. 3.5/5
Clive Hole - Simple London-based story of an indecisive TV exec on the edge. 3/5
The Only Man That Stalin Was Afraid Of - A somewhat surreal reason to set a long short story in Russia. 3/5
The Mau Mau Hat The longest of them all, occupying almost 40% of the book, this is quite a page-turner, with a clever idea regarding Porlock, but I found the ending unsatisfying. 3.25/5

I used to really like Stuff and generally always enjoyed seeing Alexei on telly. Now I'm not so sure. Sorry, mate. I like the dog on the back cover though. 3/5

[Henrik Andersson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't ever read anything by Alexei Sayle until I ran across this book at the local Salvation Army second hand shop. Being a fan of his comedic TV and audio work, I was interested to see Sayle's "serious" work, if you will. I didn't really know what to expect, but after reading the opening story "The Dog Catcher" I was hooked. These stories are not "laugh out loud" funny, there are no gags or jokes, but rather very intelligent and frequently acidic observations of humanity, really not much unlike the general focus in his standup comedy or even his TV shows. I must admit I was sceptic of the long last story, "The Mau Mau Hat", which I had no idea where it was going but delivered the payoff perfectly: a worn-out life lesson we all already know but always need to be reminded of.

[Hugo Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shame My friend never gave back my CD copy of this audiobook. Eventually I had to buy the paperback as I love the title shortstory so much. "The woman came into the valley..." The first line of Alexei's reading of his own words still echo in my mind. Having holidayed in the Algarve since I was little I have grown to observing how the English no matter how little they try they never ever end up being part of an adoptive culture. The short story shows this in a most clever way. The Dog Catcher is set in Spain but it could be Albufeira or anywhere... God one from uncle Alexei Yuri Gagarin Five Year Plan Sayle. :)

[Nitya Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barring the most violent interruptions of life, I usually equate the time I took to read a book with how much i enjoyed it. I'll tear through a good read in a day or two and get stuck on the same page for days if I'm not entirely interested.

I ripped through this book in a day, until I got to the last story. That one took me four days to get through.

[Tracey]

I was sure I had this collection of short stories. It's not on my bookshelf any more though...