One-Dog Man

by Ahmad Kamal

One-Man Dog isn’t really the story of a man and a dog. There’s a pup in it. And several men in it aged ten or thereabouts. But it is mostly an affectionate recapturing of the perilous, yet infinitely delightful world of childhood, done so vividly, with such warmth, one can only conclude that at some time or other Ahmad Kamal must have been a small boy himself. Let the reader be warned, however, that One Man Dog is not a memoir in which the keen edges of reality have been buffed smooth by time. Everything is sharply all the desperate adventures, the disastrous fights, the running skirmishes with parental authority, the frightening brushes with the law, the feverish forays into the world of finance and big business, the ecstatic yearnings that are part of growing up — all are here, in a story to make you look excitedly back into the past and catch your breath at the miracle of your own survival.

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

Reviews

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This semi-autobiographical coming-of-age adventure begins with the author telling his wife, after she got a dog, that he's a "one-dog man," and for the rest of the novel relates his childhood adventures in 1920s Cleveland, muchly involving the rescue of a puppy and what that one dog would come to mean to him. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes dogs or novels about childhood (e.g. Tarkington's Penrod, Tom Sawyer, A Christmas Story).