Funny, sad, always entrancing, Griefdogg tells a crazy-sane story about identity, love, family and forgiveness.
Susan's Review
Australian writer Michael Winkler’s debut novel Grimmish, self-published in 2020, quickly gained a cult following, was picked up by a mainstream publisher and was subsequently shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2022. Described by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee as “the strangest book you are likely to read this year,” its successor, Winkler’s newly released novel Griefdogg, is just as strange, and just as playful with form and language. But while Grimmish is fundamentally an exploration of masculinity, Griefdogg is more philosophically inclined. It asks the big question: what does any of this — work, sex, family, friendship, the fate of the planet — ultimately matter?
The main character, Jeffrey Watson-Johnson, is a man of science, an emotionally distant but loyal husband and father, and a creature of self-discipline and routine. He’s also a model citizen who’s spent decades contributing to the welfare of his Mildura community. So far, so middle-class, and rather predictable. But everything changes when Jeffery unexpectedly inherits a substantial sum of money: after a celebratory but ultimately disappointing night of sex with his cousin Pam, Jeffrey is overcome with guilt and shame, and slumps into despair. But even the use of this now familiar narrative trope of a middle-aged man having a mid-life crisis can’t prepare us for the audacity of what happens next: Jeffrey’s decision to become the family pet. He doesn’t bark or eat dog food, nor does he expect affection or even being taken for walks. Instead, his self-identification as a dog is a way of rejecting his human obligations to family, friends and the wider community; of refusing to keep being, in doggy terms, a “good boy.”
What follows is even stranger. Jeffery develops a canine’s intense sense of smell (estimated to be somewhere between 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive than a human’s). Intuiting his teenage daughter’s depression, he spends hours sitting dog-like on her bed, his very presence soothing his child to sleep. He also finds himself able to smell the grief of people in the town, who when they tell him about their suffering, experience decided relief. But does Jeffrey’s newly discovered gift change the course of his life? Not according to the way in which the novel begins: a monologue in which a narrator rehearses his speech for Jeffery’s funeral; his constant fumbling with cliches and repeated banalities suggest that words can’t possibly explain an individual’s bizarre and yet humanly understandable search for meaning. Nor can this summary do justice to the novel’s philosophical depths and use of mordant humour, including some of the cleverest “dad jokes” I’ve ever heard.
Griefdogg will appeal to readers interested in experimental fiction and its take on the “big” question of what makes for a meaningful life. Its refusal of easy answers to that question, expressed with stylistic flair, will almost certainly, and deservedly, boost Winkler’s cult following.
Griefdogg is now available in the Lane Bookshop.
Publisher blurb
Meet Jeffrey Watson-Johnson: hydrologist, husband of Martine, father of Bern, model citizen of Mildura.
But after he inherits a small fortune from an obscure aunt and has a disconcerting encounter with his cousin Pam, Jeffrey decides it’s time to change everything.
He tells Martine he wants to live as if he were the family pet.
Sleeping through the day or wandering beside the river, he discovers a new power: he can sense secret grief in others. What to do with this gift? Or with his awareness of the endless streams of water flowing unseen beneath the earth?
Michael Winkler’s first novel Grimmish became a cult hit. Griefdogg is another triumph. Funny, sad, always entrancing, it tells a crazy-sane story about identity, love, family and forgiveness.
