The Dog

Stunning. The Dog bristles with prickly details and barbed observations . . . An incisive - and highly impressive - debut

New York Times

A book of extraordinary power

The Guardian

Livings's magnificent debut collection of short stories, The Dog, all set in contemporary, or near-contemporary China, satisfies that basic readerly urge, pitched somewhere between escapism and anthropological curiosity, to be transported.

The Independent

Livings writes so simply, and so well . . . These stories are sneaky, almost subliminal, in their ambitions and connections

Kirkus Reviews

What gives these stories their dark, upsetting grandeur is in every case the luminosity of hope, no matter how fragile, how vulnerable, how very nearly extinguished

Paul Harding, 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning author of 'Tinkers'

A brilliant and promising debut. With its tales of volatile protagonists struggling to survive in contemporary China, The Dog should attract widespread attention and praise . . . Any unfamiliarity with the Chinese locales and culture is quickly eased by Livings's imaginative yet realistic scenarios and vividly drawn characters

Booklist

Already causing excitement in America, Jack Livings's remarkable The Dog is an impressive clutch of stories showing post-Mao China

Sunday Times

A socially complex and pitch-perfect account of modernization's grueling aftermath

Publishers Weekly

A captivating read

The Lady

Livings has a keen eye for details and a knack for dialogue

The Spectator

Touching and humane

Financial Times