Dogs of the Deadlands

This sat in my TBR pile for close to two years before I got around to reading it. Big mistake! Because when I did start pick it up – and more out of a sense of duty because it had been there so long than because I wanted to – I loved it. 

I was confused by the story at first. It begins with a girl and a puppy in the town of Pripyat, just as the Chernobyl reactor is about to explode. When it does, the town’s evacuated. The puppy has to be left behind.

And then we’re into a new narrative, with a mother and her two puppies in the now deserted ‘deadlands’ of the title, following her as she teaches them to hunt and to survive. More dogs appear. Wolves. Other humans. There are bloody fights and animal friendships forged. And broken apart. Where is all this going?

But slowly – well, for me at least – the story strands begin to come together and everything comes back to join the ends of the circle with a highly satisfying click. We end up with an unflinching look at the lives of wild dogs foraging and fighting for survival.  And if there are humans in it to offer some of those dogs some salvation, that salvation feels genuinely earned. 

It’s definitely not Disney.