The Dogs of Winter

Rating:
Summary: Dark and moody suspense
Review: An absorbing book full of darkness and brooding suspense fueled by the fanatical extremes of the characters pushing them individually beyond the boundaries of conventional reason. It had me hooked.

Rating:
Summary: Great Atmosphere but Sloppy Storytelling
Review: Atmosphere is king in Nunn's forth novel, an oddly assembled and arranged rambling semi-thriller about the quest to find a legendary secret surfing spot on the far northern California coast. The story treads much of the same turf as Alex Garland's The Beach, James Dickey's Deliverance, and Conrad's Heart of Darkness-but pales in comparison to all of them (yes, even The Beach). We meet a rapidly aging down-and-out surfing photographer who gets one last chance: he's to accompany two young pro surf hotshots as they meet up with a former legend who claims to know where the secret spot is and will guide them there. With this holy grail of surfing as the catalyst, the men journey to way northern California to meet the old legend, who lives with his weird young wife in Indian land. She forms the basis for another plotline, as she asks around about a local girl who was apparently murdered by an Indian. For reasons that are never explained, she's obsessed with local Indian witchcraft, and wanders the woods at night. One of the novel's big flaws is that she's very poorly drawn, and it's hard to understand why she's married to the ex-surfer king, or what she's doing there.

As the surfers pursue their primal communion with the ocean, they manage to stir up trouble with the Indians, who aren't keen on outsiders. Next thing you know, some serious evil types arrive from "upriver", where the meth labs are... The tension mounts as the surfers hike all over, looking for the spot, unaware that some stone-killer Indians are on their trail. Eventually, the various obsessions and plotlines start to get all tangled up, and even the well-meaning people in the story can't escape. The whole thing is kind of alternately cheezy and offhandedly violent. Nunn certainly doesn't add anything to the "quest" genre or the thriller genre, but he does provide some great atmosphere. The opressiveness of the heavily wooded rugged coastline, with scary liquor stores, unfriendly natives, and ramshackle summer cabins, is vividly unsettling. But there are too many strands, too many underdeveloped characters, and too much sloppiness to really make it all worthwhile, although those with a strong interest in surfing may find more to like in it.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Be Afraid to go where Nunn Takes You
Review: Dogs of Winter isn't just a novel about surfing, it's not just a novel for those who love surfing. Dogs of Winter is a novel for those who want to face up to the more unseamly side of life, to see the world through the eyes of men who, while they probably haven't seen everything, have seen enough. Jack Fletcher, the main character is a sort of washed up in everyone's eyes but his own photographer who is asked to photograph a legendary surfer, of his generation, in a legendary, almost mythic surfers cove. He travels to Northern California where what happens to him is more about survival, survival and hope, than it is about mere surfing. Nunn's plot takes many twists and turns and is full of enough characters to make it interesting, without being crowded of confusing. Nunn reminds me a bit of Richard Ford in his contemplation of regret and loss, but he's of a different breed. There is a wide open quality of his writing and his stories and somehow the setting melds with the writing. I read Nunn's two earlier novels in the 80s and loved them. He somehow fell off my radar screen, but I am glad to have discovered Dogs of Winter. It is a complex work, a pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: A book about...surfers?!
Review: I read Kem Nunn's previous novel "Tapping the Source" and thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't "my kind of novel" but I still scarfed that book down. It also gave me a nice appreciation for the surfing mentality. I found "The Dogs of Winter" many years later and gave it a try. Kem's ability to draw me into the novel is disturbing but admirable. I can't begin to understand the motivations of the characters in the beginning, but as I continue to be drawn into the novel and its characters I find that their stories are not so different from those of real people I know. I relate to the characters on a gut level which tosses aside any differences I have with them. Before long I'm eager to see what happens regardless of the fundamental lack of shared philosophy, lifestyle or motives. Too top off the good characterization Kem Nunn has a real understanding of the environment he's writing about. From the knowledge of surfers and their mindset to the region and the climate they challenge, I really feel like I'm walking the shores of the Northern California Pacific coast. It's a scary place with its extremes in weather but also full of beautiful detail and wonder. This guy can cook. I've never had a big interest in surfing or surfers, however, just like my experience with his previous novel, by the end of this book I'm almost ready to jump on a board to try my hand in the numbingly cold waters of the north Pacific. Luckily the sharks and the huge, deep Pacific waves are there keep me out of the water. Did I mention that I cramp easily?

Rating:
Summary: Can you say "Rip Off"????
Review: I read this and was quite astonished, to say the least. This is a total rip off of Michael DeGregorio's "Thunder Bay".

The surf community is small cadre of people and ripping off one of their own is not something to take lightly.

If you want the real deal, get the original by DeGregorio.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Kem Nunn can really draw the reader into his world of surfing. He paints a great picture of the highs and lows of surfing in general. From the cold wetsuits, long paddles, and sharks, to the rush of dropping into a monster wave. He also puts down in words every surfer's fantasy of "that perfect wave." I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a gripping surf novel.

Rating:
Summary: The place where legends die.......
Review: Man, this was an astonishingly good book, that used surfing as a background to a harrowing tale of full of fear, darkness and in the end, redemption. Nunn's a great storyteller, and I barely put the book down until I finished it.

Nunn has an eye for sides of life that many among us would never see -- or even imagine -- if it weren't for his skilful writing. This novel, set on the lonely far northwest coast of California, covers plenty of those sides of humanity as surf and native american culture mix with a little of the occult. For the surfer, there are waves and surf spots of legend on this coast -- if you know where to find them. But one sometimes pays a very high price for a great wave, as some find out in The Dogs of Winter.

I don't really want to give away any of the plot, but for what I've written. The Dogs of Winter is a unique book that any mystery fan would like, surfer or not. It's a very fine effort by an author who I hope will be more prolific. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling dark surfing novel has substance
Review: This book plays on two great themes in surfing: a] the undiscovered great surfing spot. b] a connection with the primal. Surfing and the Pacific Northwest wilderness are a backdrop for a story that is about the search for redemption. A middle-age reclusive surfing legend and his young wife live in the remote wilderness of the Pacific Northwest coast. Their nearest neighbors a somewhat hostile Indian reservation. Word is out that the aging legend has discovered a mystical surfing spot with 30 foot waves. A burned-out photographer, who knew the legend during his heyday, is sent to get photos and brings along two hot-shot punk surfers. Soon the surfers and locals clash. The photographer and the local Native-American police chief are caught in the middle. The book revolves around three main characters: The legend's wife, who has become strangely obsessed with a local murder and witchcraft almost to the point of insanity. The photographer, once a legend himself but now burned out. The local womanizing Police Chief who has to straddle the Native-American culture and the modern world. All are flawed and living the results of bad choices in life which is reinforced by the remote dreary wet landscape and the dark tone of Nunn's pen. This novel rises above its genre and will surpise many who read it.

Rating:
Summary: No hope save hope
Review: This is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. The title is not so great. "Dogs of Winter" sounds like a straight-to-video action flick starring Charlie Sheen.

Then you read the back cover copy.

It's about a mystical cove in California. A place surfers talk about in hushed tones. The Devil's Hoof, home to the last great wave. Nobody has ever found it, but many have searched in vain. Until now. When I read that, I thought: okay - it's a surfer version of that over-rated Alex Garland book, "The Beach".

A group made up of two young surfers, a grizzled old photographer, a legendary surfer and a young kid find the cove and decide to make something of it, which riles the local Indian population somewhat. When the kid vanishes beneath one of the great waves, the local Indian population decide to retaliate: the legendary surfer's half-mad wife is abducted and the young surfer, the old photographer and the legendary surfer disappear into the woods roundabout. At which point, it's a case of Alex Garland's "The Beach" meets - what? "Straw Dogs"? "Deliverance"?

I'll tell you. When I started reading I thought: this is a book without surprises.

I only started reading because of a conversation with a friend. We were talking about end-of-year polls, how you can often hear about books and music that passed you by, how you can often pick up a treat that otherwise you might have missed. He told me that he spotted "Dogs of Winter" in one such poll two or more years ago. He told me I should read it and - you know, you feel kind of obligated after that, right?

Recommendation notwithstanding, I approached this book like I'd approach a snake with it's back up.I'll tell you - I'll hold my hands up - I was wrong. This is not in the least like you expect it to be.

The thread of the novel primarily winds itself about three people - Fletcher (the grizzled old photographer I told you about), Kendra (the half-mad wife of the legendary surfer) and a local police guy / mediator called Travis. All of whom are in some way flawed. Fletcher used to be a great photographer but now he is relegated to weddings and drinking in the morning. Kendra has a history of insanity and worries about being her father's daughter, her father being the kind of guy who beat his wife and worked his way in and out of one institution or another. Travis used to be a hell-raiser, and has a reputation as a womaniser, but really he is a failure: two failed marriages and a kid he doesn't really know. When Travis stands out by the sea in the fog with his father, you see two versions of the same old goat.

Kem Nunn frustrates your expectations through deft deflection for the most part. Action occurs off camera. You chance upon the big plot turns after the fact - the reader is wandering about in the woods with all these other people, and you have as much chance as they do to converge upon what happens next. The convergences are not the most important parts of the story.

The weight of the book lies in the spaces between what happened before and what happens next, the still moments as characters watch the sky and regret choices (choices that shaped lives, choices that shaped the action over the previous pages).

"Dogs in Winter" is not a B-movie, straight-to-video action flick. "Dogs in Winter" is about age and the baggage you accumulate as you make your way from Point A to Point B. Towards the end of the book, Travis says:

"A man should have something . . . some thread to the earth, lest he lose even the ground beneath his feet."

That's what all of these people are looking for. (I suppose you'd call it sense: that attempt to articulate and make sense of the larger things - like the effect of the sea upon the lives of those who live by the coast - even though the larger things often refuse articulation.)

Fletcher sums this up:

"It was his hope that these things were so ordered, though there was little foundation for this hope save hope itself."

The people in the book (Hell, the people reading the book) have hopes - frustrated or otherwise - and reading that acts like a congress, part sweet part sour. It's not the kind of book that would normally have caught my eye. Sometimes it's good to know people, good to have books (and ideas and anything else) thrust into your hand, sometimes it's good to be told what to do, because otherwise you'd miss out on the things that might otherwise have passed you by.

Rating:
Summary: Moody, compelling. Serpentine twists.
Review: __________________________________________________

Three men on a quest for the surfers' Holy Grail. Through a Wasteland darkened by evil. If they survive the journey, whose blood will spill into the chalice?

Written by the author of cult favorite TAPPING THE SOURCE, Kem Nunn's THE DOGS OF WINTER is a moody, compelling novel about surfing and the lightless depths of the human heart.

The story centers on three surfers' adventurous trip through the wilderness to surf and photograph Heart Attacks, "California's premier mysto wave, the last secret spot." Unfortunately for them (but not for us), these are strange bed-fellows. Legendary Drew Harmon is as menacing as the shark that ripped out pieces of his flesh and as elemental as the 30 foot waves he rides. Robbie Jones, cresting the wave of surfing stardom, loves Jesus and fires a mean wrist rocket. And Jack Fletcher takes stunning photographs of waves and surfers but can't seem to get a clear focus on his own life.

Then there are the Indians who stand in their way. The Moke, a septuagenarian shaman who likes to party hearty. And an unholy trinity of up-river bad guys who seem to have sprung from some artesian well of pure evil.

Further complications arise when the Indians take captive Drew's land-locked wife, Kendra, who empowers herself by performing magic rituals and wearing the clothes of a murdered girl. Also stumbling into the picture is Travis McCade, half Hupa Indian and half "wagay" (non-Indian), a romantic trouble-shooter whose attempts at heroism usually end by shooting himself in the foot.

Refreshingly, these characters are all "off-beat" in fascinating ways. If they're marching to a different drummer, evidently he's from some other planet.

Nunn's writing style is engaging. At times it feels like the dark, brooding atmosphere just before a tropical storm. Then we're swept completely away by the storm's fury when it hits. And in its flashes of lightning, we catch dim glimpses of serpentine twists and turns that never take us remotely where we expect to go. It's an unsettling effect -- like looking at a collection of photographs taken by some omniscient and slightly mad photographer.

And yes, we caught Nunn's wave, and we're riding it in. But where is it taking us -- to the sun-lit shore, or deeper into the heart of darkness?