Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars reminds me a lot of Earth Abides, by George Stewart–one of my favorite books. It has a lot of the same poetic melancholy and the same strange notes of hope as the main character, Hig, survives after two devastating plagues wipe out most of the human population in the United States (and, presumably, the rest of the world).
The Dog Stars is written in flowing style. Heller doesn’t use dialog markers and the chapters are written, mostly, in short paragraphs. This style, which would normally drive me nuts, helps give you a sense of what life and thought might be like if all of the usual markers of time and social rules were gone. Hig lives at an airport with his dog and an odd survivalist man named Bangley. He’s without human company most of the time and has gotten into the habit of reminiscing and talking to himself. He does have a job, of sorts. He flies short sorties to make sure that their hideaway is not found by the roving bands of starving and/or infected people. Hig lives in a very violent world, more violent than I think things might have been during even the darkest years of the Dark Ages. At least then (I think) you didn’t open fire on everyone who approached without trying to talk to them.
After a heartbreaking episode while hunting, Hig decides to pursue a muffled radio exchange he heard three years previously with another airport. He meets other survivors that he gets along with (in spite of their efforts to kill him when he buzzed their valley). Even after all the devastation of the plagues, revealed as Hig and his new friends fly back to Hig’s home, there’s a clear sense that humanity can rebuild, and maybe learn something this time around. Mixed into the descriptions of burnt towns and wrecked vehicles, there are hints that nature is starting to recover. Hig and his companions see deer and a bear, even a few buffalo. After pointing out the effects of climate change and extinction and pollution in the first half of the book, the second half shows nature starting to adapt.
Once we get into the second half of the book, Heller gently changes the tone from melancholic mourning and hopelessness to a kind of purposeful resurrection for Hig. He finds something to live for. I wonder if Heller has read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, because reading this book is a lot like seeing Frankl’s thesis set to fiction. I don’t mean this in a disappointed way, because I loved seeing this play out. This book is extremely well written.
I have quite a few books vying for the title of “favorite” .. but this one is a top contender, if not the winner. What a beautiful, lyrical, magical, poignant book, writer, characters, story! Also scary, worrisome, sad, but ultimately hopeful. There is something about it that almost transcends writing and becomes real, heartfelt, so very touching. You'll see ..