Even the Dogs: a novel by John McGregor

In the days between Christmas and New Year’s, police break into an empty inner city apartment in an unnamed English city and find a decaying body.  What happened before and after is narrated by friends of the deceased man, a chorus of drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the homeless who take turns observing the investigation, inquest and cremation at a distance.  The story proceeds in bits and pieces as we enter the lives of society’s outcasts who eke out a miserable and hopeless existence  waiting for food and the next drug high, estranged from families, dependent on charity and public assistance.   Even the dogs is  powerful, insightful  but a difficult book to read.

Every year San Jose Public Library, along with libraries throughout the world, nominates titles for the Impac Dublin award. The 2013 long list of nominations will be released in November. A  panel of judges selects a shortlist of ten titles which is announced in April 2013. The finalist is announced in June.   The 2013 Award will be given for a work of fiction published in English between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2011,