The Dog: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

A New York Times Notable Book
Nominated for the Man Booker Prize

In this extraordinary, both comic and philosophically profound novel, the acclaimed author of Netherland uncovers the hidden contours of a glittering Middle Eastern city€"and the quiet dilemmas of modernity. When our unnamed hero, a self-sabotaging and oddly existential lawyer, finds his life in New York falling apart, he seizes an opportunity to flee to Dubai, taking a mysterious job for a fabulously wealthy Lebanese family. As he struggles with his position as the €œfamily officer€ of the capricious Batros brothers, he also struggles with the €œdoghouse,€ a condition of culpability in which he feels trapped, even as he composes endless electronic correspondence€"both sent and unsent€"in an attempt to find a way out.

An unforgettable fable for our globalized times, The Dog is told with Joseph O€Neill€s hallmark eloquence, empathy, and stylistic mastery.