Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: An interesting first novel, particularly for its subject matter and characters. Benedict is at his finest when a) describing the lust West Virigina hill country that he seems familiar with. and b)creating violent imagery. On these merits alone, I recommend this book and would compare it to, oh, Elmore Leonard and Brett Easton Ellis. The plot of the book seems rather tangential to what Benedict is trying to achieve. The story, such as it is, seems to serve as an exscuse for Benedict to show off his talent and his choice of venue. Benedict, to me, seems similar to Bret Easton Ellis in that he enjoys portraying grotestque situations with a peculiar kind of flatness. Character's speak with strange inflections (by this I don't mean sterotyped hillbilly drawl) and motivation is not always evident. This book is a fascinating read, particularly for those of us who don't interact, on a regular basis, with crazed Hill Country drug lords. I'll be interested in his next book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: An interesting first novel, particularly for its subject matter and characters. Benedict is at his finest when a) describing the lust West Virigina hill country that he seems familiar with. and b)creating violent imagery. On these merits alone, I recommend this book and would compare it to, oh, Elmore Leonard and Brett Easton Ellis. The plot of the book seems rather tangential to what Benedict is trying to achieve. The story, such as it is, seems to serve as an exscuse for Benedict to show off his talent and his choice of venue. Benedict, to me, seems similar to Bret Easton Ellis in that he enjoys portraying grotestque situations with a peculiar kind of flatness. Character's speak with strange inflections (by this I don't mean sterotyped hillbilly drawl) and motivation is not always evident. This book is a fascinating read, particularly for those of us who don't interact, on a regular basis, with crazed Hill Country drug lords. I'll be interested in his next book.
Rating:
Summary: If it suits your taste, this is entertaining
Review: Dogs of God slowly winds together the disparate lives of about one dozen mysterious West Virginians. Their stories develop slowly and separately, but in time each leads toward a conflict on a doomed marijuana plantation in a state forest. Among the players are several FBI agents, a double crossing county sherriff, a hitchhiker, a former moonshiner and his trouble seeking wife, several "Mingoes", the tour guides at a natural cavern, a wreckless killer, and the protagonist Goody.The reader most identifies with Goody, an itinerant past his prime boxer whose proudest possession is his powerful Pontiac. Goody is aptly named. He gives people the benefit of the doubt, and as a result he often gets played for a sucker. All Goody wants is to get back in fighting shape so that he might once again earn more boxing purses. He gets an opponent, but of course nothing is quite as he has been led to understand it will be about his fight. I disagree with some reviews that criticize this book's ending. At first, it does seem that all of this book's carefully orchestrated momentum will only be resolved by fighting. But this is not the Dukes of Hazzard. Benedict shifts the book's tone at the end and the plot takes on a very metaphorical feeling. Its a surprising change of pace. Understand, this book follows in the tradition of "noir." Its a good story, but not always pleasant and not at all redeeming. I like it, but I also like Poe and Jim Thompson. Dogs of God is not for everyone. I read the first chapter of this book to my fiance, and she made me stop several times. If you are looking for a literary Peckinpah, maybe Pinckney Benedict will appeal to you. If you are looking for a book with a social message, or a lesson in morality that connects to normal life, then look elsewhere. If you just want a very entertaining story, though, you will be satisfied.
Rating: 
Summary: miserable
Review: Fragmented story, vapid characters, the few moments of interest only highlight the lackluster quality of the rest of the writing. Not worth the effort and nowhere near as interesting as the hype.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the finest I read in '99 by far
Review: Imagine a suicidal goth-obsessed Eastern European director wants to remake Any Which Way You Can. But the studio, in sending him the script, manages somehow to interleave the pages with parts of Deliverance, High Risk, and Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke. The director receives the script, reads it, thinks it's a work of avant-garde genius, and films it. Pinckney Benedict has written the novelization of that nonexistent film and called it Dogs of God. Vulgar, brutal, unassuming, twisted, and intensely fascinating in all the right places, Benedict has taken the modern-primitive concept, applied it in novel form, and succeeded all too well. A profoundly disturbing book, on my top 15 reads of '99 list.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and Preposterous
Review: The main character's name is "Goody" and the love interest is called "Dreama" and another character is called "Peanut". If the author can't imagine these characters as real people with real names, how can the reader be expected to? The writing itself is quite striking, but the story is weak, aimless, and there is no dramatic tension at all. It seems like the author knew this and tried to bluff us with a lot of heavy breathing and embarrisingly over-the-top grandiloquence. Like a violent empty cartoon, but written as if it were Moby-Dick.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and Preposterous
Review: The main character's name is "Goody" and the love interest is called "Dreama" and another character is called "Peanut". If the author can't imagine these characters as real people with real names, how can the reader be expected to? The writing itself is quite striking, but the story is weak, aimless, and there is no dramatic tension at all. It seems like the author knew this and tried to bluff us with a lot of heavy breathing and embarrisingly over-the-top grandiloquence. Like a violent empty cartoon, but written as if it were Moby-Dick.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine Writing Falls Flat at the End
Review: This book is many of the things it is alleged to be: violent, suspenseful, full of well drawn weird characters, and a description of rural West Virginia that makes it as menacing as any exotic setting. The plot keeps driving and driving, bringing a bare-knuckle fighter, gun runners, a psycho drug lord, enslaved illegal immigrants, and other assorted folk together for a grand shoot 'em out climax. Unfortunately it falls a bit flat in the end as things get a little too odd, I can't quite put my finger on it, but the end didn't satisfy me or justify the buildup. Others may be happier with the results.
Rating:
Summary: Well written, but...
Review: This is a peculiar novel in that while meant to be a thriller, in essence, there are so many points/sections/chunks in which the author is clearly in love with his own ability to write that he expounds at great length re trivial items about which the reader really has little or no interest. Too bad, because Benedict is a writer whose technique is obvious.
But if a novel is meant to be a thriller, even if a literary one, it should move. And unfortunately there is just too much text bogging this down to really make it gather the momentum it should. There's no question that the author can draw convincing characters, even if peculiarly named, but he is inconsistent in the extent to which he describes/defines these characters, seemingly based on his whim. That is, some characters are fully fleshed out and others, even non-minor ones, are not much more than one-dimensional almost cartoon-like characters.
This inconsistency is weirdly reminiscent of the ill-fated remake of the film Cape Fear directed by Scorsese, in which DeNiro's Max Cady was so all over the place that it was impossible to see clearly exactly what the film was doing. In the case of Dogs of God, the major distraction derailing what could have been a powerful piece of work is, as mentioned, the author's obsessive need to trumpet his own writing ability.
There is no real main character, per se. Goody, a young bare knuckles fighter in rural Appalachia, is ostensibly meant to fill this role, but Benedict throws in so many other characters that it is impossible to cast Goody as the real focus of attention. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when, for example, the writer details the problems one character has with lighting one match after another to try to ignite a car--sparing no expense to insure the reader understands how difficult lighting a match REALLY CAN BE--tedium sets in rapidly and quickly and easily destroys whatever momentum might possibly have been built prior to this scene.
And there are many, many scenes like this one. It's interesting to contrast this novel with A Single Shot, Matthew Jones' masterful literary thriller. Jones knows that momentum is the KEY to a great thriller and he knows exactly how to build it. He doesn't waste time with trivialities like Benedict does.
Dogs of God's "bad guy", Tannhauser, as Max Cady is described above, is all over the place. With six fingers on each hand, a maverick marijuana grower with an "impregnable" fortress, in one scene he lords it over his Hispanic workers; in another, he spouts insane gibberish about interplanetary aliens among us; in another, he exhorts a younger man to kill Goody. The focus is lost.
The three stars here are because Benedict definitely knows how to write and that is clearly evident in his short stories which are punchy, powerful, and intelligent pieces of work. But he has gotten lost in putting together this novel which does not do what it should.
Rating:
Summary: Fine work
Review: This is a well crafted book, not the usual word processed [stuff] that passes for popular fiction these days. It is a evocative, dark,literate slice of Americana. Not reccomended for those who like their reading to crank along at the pace of a made for T.V movie. Pinckney has a fine eye for character and detail. If you liked the movie "Sexy Beast", you will probably enjoy this book as well.
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