Schrödinger's Dog
A Novel
-
- $4.99
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
A striking debut novel about the power of a father’s love for his son and the heart-wrenching choices he has to make in the face of death.
Yanis’s world is Pierre, the son he raised as a single parent. For nearly twenty years, Yanis spent his nights as a cabdriver with Pierre always at his side, so as not to miss a moment in each other’s company. Yanis and Pierre also share a love of diving—in pursuit of that magical moment when they lose themselves in the deep sea. When enveloped by the natural world, father and son relish an escape from life’s pressures.
But for some time, Pierre has been tired. Too tired. Despite how attentively Yanis watched him, Yanis missed the early signs of illness. Faced with the harsh reality of his son’s numbered days, Yanis struggles to invent a life his son won’t have the time to live.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dumont's rich, somber debut plumbs a father-son relationship to meditate on the fictions people create to endure loss. Widowed French cabbie Yanis Mar s, long haunted by the possibility that his wife Lucille's death was a suicide, lives for his college-aged son Pierre, calling him "my greatest accomplishment." Pierre, a biology student and hopeful novelist, is equally devoted to Yanis, and they share a passion for deep-sea diving. After the sudden decline of Pierre's health from pancreatic cancer, Yanis tries to get Pierre's novel published. As Yanis and his son grapple with Pierre's terminal prognosis, Yanis considers telling him his book was accepted, and, during a visit with Yanis's prickly in-laws, Yanis vacillates between an idealized story about their grandson's literary success and pressing for the truth about his wife's death. Dumont, also a naval architect, credibly describes the characters' love for the depths of the sea, which they appreciate for its darkness and quiet desolation. While the compressed narrative jumps abruptly between major plot developments, Dumont effectively explores the forces that draw Yanis and Pierre to solitude. As Pierre fades, Dumont offers powerful philosophical insight into questions of what people owe one another and the value of subjective belief.
