title: Down from the Dog Star: A Novel
author:  Daniel Glover 
description: Purporting to be a goofy collection of letters written by zany, aging gay man Jackie Luden to various friends and fellow participants of Narcotics Anonymous, this debut effort is less a novel than a collection of eccentric vignettes. Jackie lives at Quarter Pine, the Luden family's ancestral home in Ludens Bend, Ala., with his son-worshipping aristocratic mom, Minnie, and Minnie's best friend and constant companion, Helen, an old black freedom fighter who has posed as the Ludens' maid all her life. Ludens Bend is also home to beer-bellied redneck Sheriff Beebus McCloud, who, out of old loyalty to Jackie's mother, mostly looks the other way when Jackie misbehaves. Jackie's non-NA pen pals include Junior Wulmothe, his obese, gay lifelong friend; the good Sisters who run the Eternal Life Cafe and Souvenir Shop for Jesus, and a missionary outreach program in the heart of the Amazonian jungle; the dead "Walter" Disney; Dr. Jack "Snuggles" Kavorkian (sic); and the Coca-Cola Company. In his first letter, Jackie describes how he murdered the nasty kid who poisoned his saintly dog, Honey. Neither dog nor kid were actually murdered, but murder does play a part in the desultory plot. The only real action comes when the sheriff seems to get serious about pursuing various investigations and Jackie flees to the Amazon, where, surrounded by friendly cannibals and aliens, he writes more letters. In the last quarter of the book the author inexplicably presents the voices of other characters, and the reader wishes he had integrated them from the beginning. Though overly long and often tedious, the "not-so-thinly-veiled autobiography" occasionally offers up a bone-ticklingly funny morsel off smalltown Alabama life. (Oct.)
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  ## The Dog Stars
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Peter Heller
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Leave it to Peter Heller to imagine a postapocalyptic world that contains as
  much loveliness as it does devastation. His hero, Hig, flies a 1956 Cessna
  (his dog as copilot) around what was once Colorado, chasing all the same
  things we chase in these pre-annihilation days: love, friendship, the solace
  of the natural world, and the chance to perform some small kindness. _The Dog
  Stars_ is a wholly compelling and deeply engaging debut.”
  
  
  
  
  
  —Pam Houston, author of _Contents May Have Shifted_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A riveting, powerful novel about a pilot living in a world filled with
  loss—and what he is willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds,
  connection, love, and grace.
  
  
  Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his
  friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his
  dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 