Dog (O'Neill) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
With consummate elegance, The Dog turns in on itself in imitation of the dreadful circling and futility of consciousness itself. Its subplots go nowhere, as in life. But, unlike life, its wit and brio keep us temporarily more alive than we usually allow ourselves to be.
Lawrence Osborne - New York Times Book Review
 

An interesting moral complexity....makes [The Dog] more than a comic novel. The writing is brisk and funny, but O'Neill is also exploring deep questions about ethics and happiness in a globalized age of instant information and economic inequality. His narrator is a fascinating creation: charming and repugnant, selfless and self-absorbed, erudite and steeped in popular culture.
Nick Romeo - Chicago Tribune
 

We’ve been waiting six years for a new book by Joseph O’Neill, after the spectacular Netherland, and it’s finally here. The Dog takes readers on a comical and philosophical journey to Dubai.
Time Out New York


(Starred review.) As he did brilliantly in Netherland, O’Neill, in his latest, creates a character who is alienated from his home and social class, and who feels dangerously vulnerable in a country in which he lives a luxurious but precarious existence.... Clever, witty, and profoundly insightful, this is a beautifully crafted narrative about a man undone by a soulless society.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) A humorous meditation on the dialects of attention and distraction in the modern world, O’Neill’s work playfully skewers the global economy of consumption and our abstract notions of responsibility in its perpetuation. —Joshua Finnell
Library Journal


(Starred review.) O’Neill gets some much-needed comic effects from the linguistic jigsaw puzzle, although he’s also capable of outright funny moments.... [A] thoughtful modern fable of exile, a sad story that comments darkly on the human condition and refuses bravely to trade on the success of Netherland.
Kirkus Reviews