Mad Dog

It’s the summer of 1964 and the Supremes are the reigning queens of radio. Sheryl-Anne MacRae dreams of running away from her home on an apple orchard in southwestern Ontario to find her missing mother. But the teenager’s plans are put on hold when her uncle and guardian, Fergus, the local pharmacist and an amateur photographer, brings home a handsome young hitchhiker. When Sheryl-Anne meets the guitar-toting Peter Lucas Angelo, she falls in love.

But life in Eden Valley is not as idyllic as it seems. As the summer progresses, Peter is pulled deeper into Fergus’s dangerous underworld—a world of sex, drugs, and porn. In this thrilling tale, Watt captures the ethereal and complex Sheryl-Anne, and with vivid, often frightening detail, charts the destruction of a family. Mad Dog marks the arrival of a gifted storyteller.

“The irony is dark and palpable.” —Ottawa Citizen

“The strangest coming-of-age story you ever did read." —National Post

"At the heart of Watt’s startling new novel is a look at fanaticism that dangerously blurs good and evil for the perceived fulfillment of a prophesy." —Jenivieve DeVries, The Book Shelf