| Title | : | Where the Dog Star Never Glows |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0982576056 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780982576052 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 164 |
| Publication | : | First published February 15, 2010 |
| Awards | : | USA Best Book Award |
Where the Dog Star Never Glows Reviews
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I purchased the physical book of “Where the Dog Never Glows”....a collection of 17 short stories. The book cover is gorgeous...but as gorgeous as it is....it becomes even more so after reading Tara’s beautiful descriptive stories themselves — ( making for a very fitting book cover with the vivid prose).
Nature is very present...
Trees, butterflies, insects, loose branches, gardens, roosters, chickens, sun, snow, wind, rain, sweet smelling flowers -Hibiscus, pansies, begonias, etc., hummingbirds, crows, crickets, frogs, mountains, evergreens, sulfur springs, lizards, algae, mildew, rocks, mud, cerulean water coves, waterfalls, weather diversity, and more....
The environment, and nature blend beautifully with the characters in the stories.
We get to do some traveling with diverse characters and diverse locations: Dominica Caribbean, Montana, Puerto Rico, India, the Netherlands, the Mexican border, and New England.
At the heart of the matter....are the relationships of the people we meet ...their different circumstances, their discoveries, and awareness.....
stories that deal with life, love, loss, marriage, joy, grief, fears, sadness, courage, loneliness, illness, disability, pregnancy, travel itself, tourism, pain, cheating, persistency, betrayal, death, anxiousness, anger, guilt, understanding, acceptance, confusion, war, searching and losing, disappointments, longings, kindness, and assumptions,
.....In other words, the full range of emotions that are affectingly felt.
I really enjoyed all these stories.....that range in length and intensity.There wasn’t bad story in this collection.... but I had my own emotional connection more directly with some more than others.
I thought I’d share a few excerpts...
hoping to share the beautiful blending of storytelling and nature....
that Tara crafted with such fine intentional precision:
From the story “Champagne Water”
“Up ahead they see sparkling lights. She kicks more rapidly to get to the underwater freshwater springs. Warm air bubbles up like carbonation, and Jill does feel like she’s in the middle of a large champagne glass, little round pockets of pink light sailing to the surface, tickling her limbs as they pass. She lets herself float, facing Louis, luxuriating in the light and warmth and the sound of her own hard breathing. She pushes the breath from her lungs and dives deeper, until she is at the center looking up after white sun”.
From the story “Say Bridgitte, Please”
“She didn’t like to cut English. She loved to hear the teacher read aloud, no matter what was read. She just enjoyed the sounds of the words working together. But one day she had passed a note, folded it like a frog, too Gem.
Mrs. Stanton had seen, confiscated it, and read the message to the class.
‘Dear Gem, MUST tell you about the snake boy. I met at the fair Saturday. What a gorgeous hunk! I got him behind the snake tent. Got to tell you later!
Love-n-Stuff,
Bridge”.
As the story goes on- we are introduced to Jim (slimball-Jim)....
The story broke my little heart.
One of the smaller stories....
From “Turtle hunting”
“He took me to turtle hunting once. How many of you can say that your lovers have taken you turtle hunting?”
From “The Burnings”
“I work hard in the dormant month of February to remind myself of the warmth and life and light all being stored up in the surrounding words and earth and animals. But this February I am interrupted by the exit of one life”.
“I’ve noticed, in recent years, that the tears on my wife’s good face no longer fall—they meander through the creases, find rest in flat rivulets that begin at her eyes, eyes of a blue no longer in tents but soft and comforting”.
“Nature, I think, has a temper. Last night it was angry, lashing about. Some old oak branches were thrown to the ground, both black with right and white with fungus. One lies stuck, like a broken arm, having plunged end first into our lawn. Still, they are not enough to burn”.
This book would sure make a beautiful gift book. In fact .... I’m considering leaving it in our Airbnb room.... for our guests to enjoy. Short stories are perfect for those moments when not in the mood for a long commitment read....yet can leave us contemplating for hours - without reading for hours. And this collection is gem-reading-brimming-engrossing.
One more little share:
There is the most adorable photo on the back of the book of the author. Tara L. Masih’s little headshot added warmth when reading these stories...
Published 10 years ago in 2010. Timeless! -
These stories are extraordinary in their breadth and scope, taking us to different parts of the world, and even different time periods, never hitting a false note. But, most importantly, at least from my point of view, their focus is always on the human heart.
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What a wonderful new voice! These charming stories take you all over the globe; the American Northeast, India, the Caribbean, Belgium, etc. They also take you to many shadings of the human heart. Most of the stories have sadness but also hope and often a discovery of a different way for people to relate to one another, a deeper understanding and support emerges between the characters. Some images stand out. In one story two aging fathers come together after the funeral for one man's middle aged daughter. Each silently feeds a backyard fire with detritus from their pasts. The bereaved father is stoking the fire with letters he's exchanged over the years with his lost daughter. The other father is throwing in an old family picnic table that he'd hurriedly chopped up at his wife's insistence that he go keep vigil with his old friend. After exchanging subdued greetings they merely stand side by side and get on with their private grief. In another story a woman who's lost her fighter pilot father in World War II when she was three years old goes on a solo pilgrimage to Belgium to visit his grave. She unexpectedly finds it beautifully tended and planted. She goes to visit the woman who's been caring for it all these years and is deeply touched by her story and how the woman's experiences are is interwoven with hers though neither previously knew of one another. Masih is wonderful at setting mood and a specific sense of place through nature descriptions. Some of her stories are two pages long; others 20 pages, both are just as effective. If your experience is anything like mine you'll eat these stories like bitter sweet candies.
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"Where The Dog Star Never Glows" by Tara Masih is a masterful collection of short fiction. Haunting in its microscopic investigation of love, sensuality, loss, this writer is a humanist with a visual artist's ability to paint with words. The stories are studies in what can be accomplished with an elegant brevity, a trademark of Masih's complex vision. This collection gives us intense, personal, nearly cellular observations of people and we feel we know them, or ARE them. Her characters are fragile and strong, the lasting effect is luminous. Her prose is so dense and delicious, there were paragraphs I read over and over again to feel them again. This book is unforgettable. Masih is one of the best flash fiction/ short story writers I have read in recent times.
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"I am beginning to see the beauty here. It's in the hummingbird I saw propelling itself through the purple vines. It's in this space, this elbow room, which at first closed in on me, accentuating my aloneness... it is the vast sky covering the landscape like a bowl, like the planetariums I visited as a child. And you can watch the heavens move, change, shake, flare, not like you can in the east."
The stories in this book are all completely different from one other in subject, place, POV, tone, and protagonists. There are quite literally over a dozen different worlds to lose yourself in, running the gamut of Dominica, Mexico, India, Puerto Rico, and different regions all throughout the US. What binds them all together most strongly, like the quote up above, is that you just got lost in the utter beauty of each space. A few paragraphs and you're in and off on a new journey. It's a glorious thing to travel through Tara Masih's descriptions. To fall in love with landscapes, some of which I've seen and many that I haven't, and just be utterly astounded to see them like this. I wish that I had her eyes and her ears. I would kill for a single one of her senses. But I will settle for being grateful to have her writing.
I read this book more slowly than usual, because each time I tried to rush into the next story, I had a hard time untangling myself from the previous one. The connections and imagery are that strong. Quite a few times I caught myself thinking about them the next day. The bubbling champagne waters of Dominica, a heart being broken open as swiftly and sweetly as a coconut, a chorus of mountain frogs, rain spilling from catalpa leaves, a heartsick hermit who only leaves his sourwood tree to eat villagers' sins, a pregnant woman moving to Mexico during a flight of monarchs, and a lonely candy maker with a bent neck who makes the sweetest and saddest Spanish confections.
I'm not quite sure how Masih writes the way she does, but her stories leave little imprints on your soul, some of them lovely and light and some of them heavier. I don't mind the heavy, and even when the tone is dark there is that intense and dazzling beauty and appreciation of the natural world to counteract it. I noticed this in her last book, My Real Name is Hanna, and I read this one because of it. It didn't disappoint. The writing in this collection is astounding. The very last story, Delight, will have you more invested in the love life of a crooked-necked candy maker than you would believe is humanly possible. To borrow a turn of phrase, Tara Masih has become one of my favorite writers, just as swiftly and sweetly as a machete slicing through a coconut. -
PW online review:
". . . Masih’s stories are minimally but skillfully detailed—no last names, vague settings—giving extra weight to simple, recurring phenomena like water and color (“the evening’s August melon light”). Striking and resonant, this collection should prove memorable . . ."
http://www.publishersweekly.com/artic...
". . . nothing short of extraordinary."
http://carpelibrisreviews.com/where-t...
"Again and again, she accomplishes this sort of wonderful accuracy, this imagistic veracity . . ." --Alex Myers
http://www.newpages.com/book-reviews/...
"Tara L. Masih's debut collection of short stories is as varied as the characters she writes - encompassing a wide range of locations and styles, Masih showcases the breadth of her talent in this slim but powerful volume...."
http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Revi... -
The first thing that will strike anyone who reads Where the Dog Star Never Glows is the absolute precision of author Tara L. Masih’s prose. Throughout this collection of short stories, Masih firmly establishes herself as a master of what Gustave Flaubert (among others, including Nelson Muntz) described as le mot juste. Hers is a vocabulary wide-ranging enough to speak with studied expertise on matters ranging from tourist traps in tropical climes to the last moments of old men in tired coal mining towns, yet natural enough to talk about the trials and tribulations of a young mother-to-be in the simplest of terms, like starting a Jeep and heading for the Circle K to buy groceries. In other words, Masih has done what so many other writers spend a lifetime attempting: she’s grown so comfortable with words — the very stuff, the atoms of literature itself — that she can breathe life into the fictional worlds of her imagination with the greatest of ease. At least, that’s how it feels from the outside. Like the best of artisans, she makes her job look easy.
Masih, however, is not just a wordsmith. She’s also a master of navigating the loneliest reaches of the human heart. In a story titled, “Say Bridgitte, Please,” she follows a lonely schoolgirl down a path toward what may either be self-discovery or self-destruction, proving, as Carson McCullers once suggested, that the heart is the loneliest of hunters. Yet the author’s vision is not without hope: early on, Masih offers “The Guide, The Tourist, and the Animal Doctor,” in which the key to the human heart is revealed to, on occasion, take the form of a pair of tennis shoes; while later in the collection, a very short piece titled “Suspension” suggests that the kindness of strangers can offer the greatest comfort any of us might ever hope to experience. We are all lonely in some way, Where the Dog Star Never Glows reminds us, yet, in the end, loneliness is only what we make of it.
Where the Dog Star Never Glows is an amazing collection of short fiction that introduces Tara L. Masih as a true artist of the short story whose way with words is matched only by her intuitive grasp of all that makes us human. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see what this author does next. -
What to say! This is a wonderful story collection, set in many locations and times, focusing on the ways people relate, or try to relate, to the world around them. The settings are sometimes lush, sometimes spare, always living, breathing characters. I was blown away by this book.
Very highly recommended. -
Whether being made or broken, connections play a critical role in Where the Dog Star Never Glows. Each of Tara L. Masih’s stories in this collection can be defined by their linkage of the protagonist to other people or to places. But it is not as simple as making a love connection and living happily ever after. Some of the protagonists do seek a better half. Others seem cursed by connections that have grown stale and bothersome. In every case the result is engaging storytelling, rich in mood and profundity.
Tara is someone I have been fortunate enough to connect with on Goodreads. Still, reading this book was my first experience with her fiction writing. (Her reviews on Goodreads are also worth checking out). The prose benefits from a lyrical quality and the author’s flare for visual motifs. These add meaning without beating the reader over the head or becoming trite. To avoid any risk of spoilers, I’ll say without explanation that I particularly enjoyed when frogs could be heard nearby or lizards scattered.
I tended to enjoy the fuller pieces. I say fuller instead of longer because none of these stories is long, even by short story standards. “The Guide, The Tourist, and the Animal Doctor” is a great choice to start the collection, with its likable protagonist and romanticism. “Asylum”, which charts the threat of mental illness over three generations of women, strikes a compelling balance between suspense and meditation. And the well-titled “Delight” is, well...delightful. Kudos for the editorial choice to begin and end the book with tales and characters the reader can root for wholeheartedly.
If I have any gripe, it is that I felt some of the stories deserved to be more developed. That is as much a wish as a criticism. Each story was enjoyable, but some of the shortest ones were over too quickly for me. The brevity is clearly deliberate and the author executes the material with deftness. Like all good writing, the prose expects the reader to show up and do some thinking. This makes for better reading than having the meaning spoonfed. I will happily buy more of this author’s work in the future. It is a joy to connect with her stories. -
It's always a pleasure to discover a new voice, especially one as fresh as that of Tara Masih. The writing in her slim debut collection, "Where the Dog Star Never Glows" is beautiful, and I loved all of the flora and fauna that shows up in these stories - a hummingbird buzzing from hibiscus bush to persimmon tree, sea fans and anemones waving in underwater currents, wild balckbirds caterwauling in palm trees, etc. Masih's range is also very impressive - coal miners in the 1800s, a ghost town in Montana, a wedding in India! The author has established herself as a master of the short short form, and several of these are included, but some of my favorite stories were the longer ones such as "The Guide, The Tourist and the Animal Doctor," and "Champagne Water" which take place in Dominica; "The Dark Sun" about a pregnant expat in Mexico with an unfaithful husband who tries to forge a bond with her maid; "Asylum;" and "Delight," set in Puerto Rico, which concerns a confectioner with a disability who finds love with a surfer who comes to her shop.
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Although this collection was written over a period of years, it flows fluidly from one tale to the next, without a hint of unevenness often displayed by writers learning their craft. Always poetic, these stories cling to the constant themes of family, nature, self-discovery, and intimacy.
In the title story, "Where the Dog Star Never Glows," the narrative switches from past to present, weaving together a life, as rich as D.H. Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS, and as close to nature as Jack London's "How to Build a Fire."
I was most impressed by Masih's skill in the shorter pieces. She is a master at creating an image that resonates long after the story has been told. I will never look at a tree the same way after reading, "Catalpa." Now that it is spring and the rains come with bright skies and warmer weather, I will be looking for a tree where "it is raining liquid sunshine."
I look forward to reading Masih's next book. -
The stories in this collection span a range of settings, from the Caribbean and Puerto Rico to the Netherlands to Rajkot, India. Masih's beautifully descriptive prose does justice to all these settings, capturing the chatter of frogs, the eerie light of an eclipse, or the intricate swirls of a henna hand painting with dexterity. The real focus of the stories, however, is relationships--ones that are ordinary and yet unusual, broken and healed. I enjoyed all the stories, so it's hard to pick favorites. The one that spoke to me the most was Asylum, the story of a girl coping with a parent who has schizophrenia. I also enjoyed Memsahib, a vivid portrait of the clash of cultures during the British occupation of India. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy literary fiction that feeds the soul.
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After hearing great things about Tara Masih's debut work from numerous sources, I decided to buy her book. And I'm very glad I did. This collection of short stories came as quite a surprise; the prose is beautifully sparse and at times poetic, and she hones in on the glory of nature in unique ways.
From The Caribbean, to Belgium, to India and beyond, these stories capture razor-sharp moments, emotions, and observations that are as believable as warm soil, and somehow magical at the same time. Highly Recommended. -
I've come to the conclusion that I don't enjoy short story collections, just as I am getting into the characters and storyline it's over and leaves me wanting more. These stories, while they are good, just didn't come together for me as a book. I kept looking for a connection between them and there isn't one.
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Going from one story to another in Where the Dog Star Never Glows, I am transported convincingly to different times and places. And that’s what is refreshing about Tara's collection; you can’t peg her as a writer of a certain ethnicity. Her stories span the globe, and through the longings of her characters you see the universal struggle to live with the circumstances they’re presented: marital struggles, solitude and desire, the death of fathers and husbands. My favorite, “Ghost Dance,” about a lone guide in a restored 19th century town, ends with these gorgeous lines: [Miz Annie] smiled and moved as close as two different centuries could get without destroying the other’s illusion. And every sense in the one alive vibrated with sound and rapture.” Each of these stories is a treat, bringing the senses to a full, scent-dizzying experience of life.
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I love the depth and breath. Many of the stories will lead you in a direction and then as suddenly as it started turn you on your side, and you never know where the author is going to take you be it an adventure in a different land,culture or mind. How can one be so in touch with so many emotions that pull at your heart again and again. I am truly awe of the skill of the writer. I hope to see addtional works coming!
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Tara Masih's short story collection, Where The Dog Star Never Glows, continually amazed me. After nearly each story, I couldn't help thinking, "I wish I'd written that." Some favorite stories in this collection are "Say Bridgette, Please," and "Delight." Definitely a must-read for anyone studying the craft of short story writing.
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This is a book of short stories and I'm going to use the term bittersweet to describe it because each story has some amount of sadness (bitter parts) in it, but with the sadness is also some joy (sweet parts).
For full review, pictures, and a recipe click the link below:
http://wwwbookbabe.blogspot.com/2010/... -
This is a rich collection that takes us from cold US mining towns to the Mexican desert, from Dominica to India. Her stories often display a special sense of subtlety regarding colonialism, race, migration, disability, and deep inter-generational legacy. All of this is done with an avoidance of sentimentality. Despite a bit of unevenness in a few areas, there is much to move you here.
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I was quite impressed by everything about this collection. The settings are diverse, often exotic, sometimes bordering on mystical. The plots are quite diverse as well, and explore a wide range of emotions. In each case, the author demonstrates that her understanding of the character and the emotion is deep and empathetic. The characters are well developed, even though the stories are just a few pages long. They are people caught in a moment of life and coming to terms with the situations in which they find themselves. It would be difficult to choose a favorite story from these fine offerings. The title story is in contention, a heart-wrencher about a mining family that is well acquainted with tragedy. Other top contenders for favorite in my humble opinion would be: The Sin Eater, a tale of an outcast hermit nursing his grief while fulfilling the superstitious needs of the townsfolk who spurn him; The Burnings, in which an older man overcomes his awkward feelings and finds a way to offer his grieving friend a means to begin to leave his sadness behind; Say Bridgitte, Please, a somber and heartbreaking look at a young girl trying desperately to find the love she craves, if only for a moment; Bird Man, in which a young woman's comfort and closure upon finding her father's grave is increased exponentially when she meets the woman who has been caring for it. Also high on my list would be Catalpa, the shortest and possibly most luminous piece in the collection. It's absolutely poetic in its quick study of the dichotomy between the face the narrator's father shows to the world and the soul that lives inside him, as seen through his reaction to the catalpa tree in the yard. Throughout all these stories Tara Masih's beautiful prose drew me in and often made me catch my breath. An auspicious first offering!
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Upon the recommendation of Brendan, I somewhat reluctantly started reading these short stories. Now, I say reluctantly not because I don't trust Brendan as I trust his choices for me implicitly. I say reluctantly because he made me step out of my comfort zone. I usually read horror, mystery, thrillers and even the occasional romance. These stories are hard to categorize. They seem worldly, folksy and autobiographical all at the same time. They bellow with tears of joy and pain. They tell stories that I'd never heard before with most of them containing some type of hardship. While I would normally sit down and finish a book of short stories in one sitting, I found that impossible with this one. Some stories were so heavy and so intense I knew I had to break them up. It's like I needed time away to savor and ingest each story.
Two thumbs up to Tara Masih. I thoroughly enjoyed your work and you have broadened my horizons with your stories. And, oh yes, an extra P.S. - Thanks, Brendan :) -
An elegant, thoughtful collection. My favorite story in the collection was "The Dark Sun" within which was a paragraph that seemed to encapsulate the entire collection filled with women on the verge. The protagonist muses about a news item she read in which a mysterious woman sleeps in her car: "Who was she, I ask, that did what so many women want to do? Just get in the car, and drive; drive to another place, another spot, with clean gloves and a clean car, no mess, no bother, no one in pursuit, a clean getaway. But to where? I wish I could find her, wish I could ask what she found, if the place she rests at is enough for forever, or just for another night. If she left anyone behind, and most important, what was the final act that sent her off."
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Tara Masih is unafraid to enter other minds and travel in other worlds. The protagonists in her story collection include a healer in Dominica, an American coal miner, the daughter of a mentally ill woman, an Indian bride, and a "sin eater" who ritually takes upon himself the wrong-doings of members of a rural community. In every case, Masih is quietly, patiently persuasive. Her deep attentiveness to detail and her love of nature result in stories that are strongly rooted even when the figures who move through them are not. Inspiring!
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Where the Dog Star Never Glows by Tara L. Masih is an absolutely first-rate short story collection. Every story is a gem. Honestly, every line is a gem! The characters are well-drawn and memorable, and the places both familiar and exotic, are so well-defined, you feel like the author must have lived in each and every one of them! The Dog Star may not glow everywhere, but these stories certainly will... I highly recommend this stunning collection.
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I had the good fortune to take a one day flash fiction workshop from Tara. Not only was she a good facilitator but I had an opportunity to interact and hear writing from some very talented writers.
I wrote down some thoughts about the book for my blog:
http://cranialgunk.com/blog/2010/07/1... -
Wonderful story collection. I was particularly drawn to the stories about women and love or loss of love---my favorites were Say Bridgitte Please, The Dark Sun, Asylum, Champagne Water and Delight. The author has a real gift for writing about those subtle shifts in relationships that mean a very great deal.
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Some of these short-stories were great... others not so much. So, the rating is more like 5* for the ones I found really good and 3* and 2* for the others (almost all the really short-stories failed to impress me).
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Surprisingly short set of short-stories. Either that, or I was so involved it seemed short. Kindles distort size perception.
Very poignant stories, but I was left wanting some of them to be longer and deeper. I'd like to see how this author develops full-length stories. Some of these characters are worthy of whole novels, yet I was left feeling that the author may not have been capable of a full-length exposition.
Two of the stories in particular deserve a read and perhaps full novels: The title story--Where the Dog Star Never Glows--about an old man sensing his mortality, regretting the limitations life has given him, and rueing losses. I could read this story every year as a form of scripture. The other which caught me was "Bird Man." A woman tries to find her father by visiting his WW2 grave in Belgium and in the process finds meaning for herself and another.
You won't regret reading this book, but it may leave you wanting more.
