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2025 Book Review #3 – Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis

My mother recently retired and cleared out my childhood home, part of which involved throwing out a lot of books. So I have come into possession of a lot of weird literature no one remembers ever actually buying, which is honestly pretty exciting. This was one of them, a tragic bit of literary modern fantasy about the titular canines being uplifted to human intelligence and it ending in general quite badly for them. Not at all light reading, but interesting and very affecting at points.

The plot concerns a wager between Hermes and Apollo, regarding whether a human’s intelligence is a blessing or a curse. To settle the matter, they gift all the dogs that happen to have been left in a random Toronto vet clinic overnight the power of human thought, and bet two years of servitude to the other on whether any of them will die happy. With occasional divine interludes, the story mostly then follows the dogs – first as a pack, and then tracing each life separately with occasional unhappy reunions – from uplift to death.

This is an incredibly high concept sort of book – coming in expecting anything like traditional urban fantasy or contemporary litfic and you will be deeply confused. It is literature in a sense, I suppose – the prose itself isn’t particularly adorned or eye-catching, but it is very concerned with interiority and subjective experience, and in any case there are fifteen different poems scattered throughout the book. But far more than that, it’s philosophical fiction – which is to say, very explicitly theme-first and contemplative of the Big Idea its turning around, with the actual story being basically in service to that.

That big idea if ostensibly about whether intelligence and self-reflection are a blessing or a curse, but it’s at least as much about the degree to which its possible to live a happy life in a world full of misery and where nothing but luck keeps everything you love from being taken from you in an instant. Few of the dogs live happily – they kill each other, they make themselves miserable attempting to regain the thoughtless purity of their prior existence, they become entrapped in toxic hierarchies of status and dominance. And on the other they starve, they’re hit by cars, they eat poison, they’re abused and neglected by the humans they relied upon. It is a book with a very tragic sensibility, all in all – even the dogs with the good luck and character to find happiness always live at the risk of some divine fit of pique. In this the use of the Greek Gods as characters fit very well – Apollo taking one of the dog’s sight and hearing in annoyance with him seems entirely of a piece with how the myths often go.

As for solutions – the book’s later parts focus a great deal on two dogs who have, more or less, good lives. It is, on the whole, very positive about love (at least, a specific kind – affection devotion and most importantly understanding between equals) - but equally concerned with how ruinous losing someone whose thread of life is intertwined so tightly with yours can be. It clearly thinks there’s something a bit noble and sacred to living as a monument to grief, but equally doesn’t think doing so can really be called a good life. Instead – and this is almost too predictable, simply because it’s written by the kind of person who writes elaborate philosophical fiction – the book presents a life dedicated to poetry and art, thought and self-reflection, to beauty however fleeting it is to be the best suited to appreciating life in all its miseries. It is, as I said, quite philosophical about it.

The book also accidentally fulfills any Canadian Content obligations I had for the year. It’s a book set in and deeply in love with the geography and character of Toronto (if often a jaundiced and teasing sort of love). Honestly it talks about the city in a way I usually only see fiction discuss New York or parts of California.

As an exploration of actual canine psychology, it varies between interesting and tiresome. I rather wish any of the female dogs had survived longer or gotten more focus, just for a bit of variety on all the oft-offered opinions about mounting and heat. The fifteen poems included in the book all being the result of a project to write poetry that listening to would have an affect for humans and dogs is, at least, a very cute bit of trivia.

But yeah, interesting piece of fiction. Read if you like these sort of meditations and can take lots of unhappy and dead dogs in your stories.

#book review #fifteen dogs #andre alexis #literature #cancon #2025 #21st century

First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highli

#Andre Alexis #Fiction

ART FOR EVERY BOOK I READ THIS SUMMER PART 7: Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis

Bella and Athena from 15 dogs ❤️

Nathan Nuyts

#nathan nuyts #andre alexis

Other Worlds: Stories

By Andre Alexis.

#Other Worlds #Andre Alexis #books #book covers

Greek mythology-related books that you need to read ASAP:

Darkness becomes her by Kelly keaton

Daughter of Sparta by Claire Andrew

The graces by laure Eve

Till We have faces by C.S. Lewis *

Circe by Madeline Miller

Lore by Alexandra Bracken

Fifteen Dogs by Andrè Alexis

The song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The lighting thief by Rick Riordan

Mythos by Stephen Fry

(Add more in the comment section! 🍇🏛️)

*Is actually inspired from Roman mythology but there is also Eros and Psyche in greek mythology too so I decided to add it.

#Darkness becomes her #Daughter of Sparta #The graces #Till we have faces #Circe #Lore #Fifteen Dogs #Kelly keaton #Laure eve #C.S. Lewis #Madeline Miller #Alexandra Bracken #Andre alexis #Greek mythology #The song of Achilles #the lighting thief #dark academia #Mythos #The illiad

Novels for Black History Month

One of the ways I recognize Black History Month is through my reading habits. Obviously, I don’t confine reading novels by Black authors to one month out of the year, but each February, I make an effort to seek out these stories. As a lot of us on here are avid readers, I felt like sharing!

Here are 10 of my favourite novels (in no particular order) by Black authors:

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Ok, slight order. This is my fav.)

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

Loving Day by Mat Johnson

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

New People by Danzy Senna

This February, I have three novels lined up to read so far:

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (So excited to watch the film, but I want to read the book first!)

Black History Month is a reminder and an opportunity to listen, support, share, and applaude. If there’s a novel you feel passionate about it, recommend it to me! Tell me what I need to read!

I would love your suggestions!