Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Power of the Dog

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

13 reviews

lucindacreek's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Watched this after really enjoying the film. I think the film was perfect in terms of character arcs and pacing.

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nikereadsbooks's review against another edition

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4.25

This is not my usual kind of book so I was surprised a bit by how much I enjoyed it. I loved how it was focused on the characters, keeping the third point of view not only on George and Phil, but also adding other characters. Especially Phil's character was really interesting.

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ribcager's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Deliver my soul from the sword,
My darling from the power of the dog.”

One of these days you’ll get yours aplenty.

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farmpaws's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The heartbreak and dread of this story prowl around you for this entire book, staring out at you through Thomas Savage’s incredibly vivid descriptions. I’ve never smelt sagebrush, or been anywhere close to Montana, but I felt like I was on every page of this story. I could sit down at the table in the Burbank’s enormous house, and feel the silence crawl down my spine. Every inch of this was vividly alive, each character, especially Phil, felt so alive. It was stunning.

This book is a product of its time politics wise, but otherwise, I have no complaints. I only wish I could have lingered longer.

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mia_merrill's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

THE POWER OF THE DOG is about manhood and homophobia in the last gasps of the Old West, following a rich cattle rancher and his brother as one starts to have a life outside of their duo and the other tries to make him miserable enough to stay.

If you liked the 2021 film of the same name, adapted from this text, then you’ll probably like the book. The main changes are consolidations; placing some events as backstory instead of showing them as the book does, collapsing two side events into one, and to move Phil’s bigotry into fewer targets. The rest of this review contains minor spoilers, as it’s impossible to discuss what makes this so good without talking about some of what happens in it.

Phil is an odious person, a homophobic man who has based his hygiene and personal habits around as many opposites to his idea of a gay man in his era (clean, well-dressed, quiet, liking womanly things) that he possibly can. The end result is someone who bathes once a month (not at all in the winter), refuses to wear gloves (not even when castrating cattle and doing all the other bloody, messy work required to drive cattle and run a ranch), and uses his exceptionally sharp mind to whittle down the confidence of anyone who catches his ire (usually in language dripping with bigotry of whatever kind will sting the most). His closest relationship is with his brother George, a closeness which assumes George would never request distance and leaves Phil frustrated when George falls in love and marries a widow. He’s also enamored with his long-dead mentor in all things cowboy; Bronco Henry, talking up his wisdom and exploits to the ranch hands even two decades on from Bronco Henry’s death.

George meets and marries Rose, a widow whose husband killed himself early on in the book, years before the main story. Their son is strange, eventually assumed by Phil to be gay, called a sissy for his arrangements of paper flowers and way of dressing and walking. The boy’s quiet study of medical texts and dissections of animals hum along in the background, eventually he attends medical school with the help of his late father’s books. His actual sexuality is secondary to Phil’s perception of it, seeing the boy as weakness walking, the embodiment of everything Phil despises even as he eventually longs for connection again.

Phil’s homophobia is one of a pile of bigotries which he wields like barbs when he’s irritated or inconvenienced. He most common method of addressing his brother is “Fatso”, and when Rose starts drinking in an attempt to stomach living in the same house as him, he belittles her for it, taking it as proof that she’s just taking advantage of his brother. His every action drips condemnation, that if someone has chosen to do what Phil would not, then they must be weak or scheming and their choice is contemptible.

The audiobook narrator’s calm tone is perfect for this dryly delivered story which builds slowly, layers of time pooling to form the whole. The ending is quiet, managing to tie together everything in a single calm moment. It’s a resolution that feels like life, where one phase can unquestionably be over even as everything else continues on.

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