Choking On The Power of the Dog

Guy Clark has a song "Hangin' Your Life On The Wall" where he advises just the opposite in the chorus:

Hang on just as long as you can
Get up whenever you fall
Shake it off, Boys, and go 'round again
Don't be hangin' your life on the wall

It's that last line of the chorus that makes me wonder if he hasn't read Power of the Dog (written by Thomas Savage). I just finished last week and recommend it to anyone. My mom gave it to Emily and me over the summer and I finally got around to reading it.

The book was originally written in the 1960s and re-released in 2001. I had a hard time finding any contemporary reviews other than excerpts. Click here to read the best review I could find.

It's a story about family and siblings, but it's also about internal struggle to resist change and move on and accept progress. There's also a harsh theme about the contrast/struggle between innocence/idealism and reality. Or at least those are the major themes I found.