Songdogs

A Novel

By: Colum McCann

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Colum McCann creates in Songdogs a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.

With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. The narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine to astonishing effect.

A voyage into the River of Memory and the Eternal Quest for Truth.

I sought out this work as a respite from the Day-to-Day of Life’s events. With his trademark short, sharp, violent slash-ridden Prose, McCann evokes the struggle of Memory against Reality’s minutia, every detail accurately painted to reveal its contrast with the fog of his recalled Past.

His beautiful recall of moments with his Ma giving way to difficult encounters with his intransigent Pa create an all too familiar Drama we all can relate to with the passing of years. All these scenes intertwine to keep the Reader involved and impatient for resolution which makes Songdogs, the nickname for the constantly hunting, haunted, coyote, a pleasurable experience.

Four Stars. ****