Dogchild by Kevin Brooks

Dogchild by Kevin Brooks
Candlewick, June 2020

Ravaged by climate change and other environmental and manmade disasters, two groups of humans, possibly the last left on earth, battle for supremacy. But there are also packs of dogs in Deathlands which steal babies from the humans and bring them up as “ dogchilds.” Jeet, raised by dogs and later rescued and “rehumanized” by one of the clans and has been asked by the Marshal of the settlement to record the story of the coming final battle. 

Initially Jeet’s idiosyncratic narrative records everyday life (he has a wide vocabulary but no apostrophes, so “I’d” becomes “Ide.” Youde not be surprised at how irritating this quickly becomes) and he shows the reader a world akin to that of the early pioneers, in which scarcity is ubiquitous and ingenuity is vital. As the humans are mostly just interested in survival they have little use for reading and writing, and Jeet soon realizes that “truth is all gone” and there is no history; the present is all there is and all there ever has been. There are some clues for curious readers – I wondered if the glassrock of the Deathlands could be obsidian from a volcano or maybe Trinitite from a nuclear explosion. 

Jeet is sent on a mission to the rival Dau camp and forms a bond with Chola Se, another rehumanized dogchild. As it becomes clear that all is not as it seems, Jeet and Chola Se use their dog sense to puzzle out what’s really going on and form a strong bond. They come to understand that both clans of humans will always see them as outsiders and scapegoats and that they feel more accepted by their dog packs than the human world. As the final battle commences, the “dogchilds” have to decide where their loyalties lie. 

Though Brooks (The Bunker Diary, Carolrhoda, 2015) deftly explores ideas of identity and what it means to be human, the vehicle he uses is unnecessarily overlong (471 pages) making it ponderous and unwieldy.

Thanks to Candlewick for the ARC.