A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World. C.A.Fletcher. Orbit, 2019. 384 pages.
This incredible book has renewed my faith that people can still write superb and beautiful novels. It’s what we call a hot read. I had to keep telling myself to slow down, because the constant suspense made me want to read faster. And then you get to the end, quicker than you wanted, wishing that it could go on, so that you could stay in that world and stay in the story.
The novel’s world, as the title reveals, is a dystopia. It would be wrong to say much more than that, because almost anything one might say about this book would be a spoiler. The author, knowing that, includes this line just before the first page: “It’d be a kindness to other readers — not to say this author — if the discoveries made as you follow Griz’s journey into the ruins of our world remained a bit of a secret between us.”
I will mention some of the setting, since you’ll learn it anyway in the first few pages: The story starts in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, the memories of which are still fresh in my mind from a visit there last August. Everyone who goes there, I suspect, wants to find a way to hold on to the magic of those islands. C.A. Fletcher did it with this novel.
This book, I suspect, will become a classic. And because C.A. Fletcher is a screenwriter, I suspect it also will become a movie. Yes, it’s a dystopia; but no, it’s not depressing. You’re probably going to read it sooner or later, so why not get started…
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