The Dog Seated Next to Me
At the last count there were over 190 different breeds of dog in the world. Here we have 65 pedigree stories and only a handful have anything to do with dogs. Meg Pokrass's sixth collection of flash fictions however represents best in class of the short literary form; miniature stories that will jump into your lap and let you stroke them, fierce stories that will frighten you, snarl and bare their teeth, stories that will whimper until you've taken them for a walk, stories that will leave a mess on your carpet. For those who don't like dogs, there are love-struck cockroaches, six-foot spiders, blue-tongued skinks, Margaret Thatcher-like spouses, horny night bugs. Meg Pokrass's stories are about the necessary animals seated next to all of us.
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"The stories of Meg Pokrass are like beautiful bruises. I read them and ache. Sparse, poetic, insightful, and always astonishing. This is writing that makes you feel alive." --Angela Readman, author of "Something Like Breathing"
"In the universe of Meg Pokrass's fictions, planets are gloriously misaligned, stars and suns trail love and desperate sadness, black holes serve up dogs, spiders, cats, and galaxies explode everything we thought we knew about the human heart. It is an ever-expanding universe. No other like it." --Pamela Painter, author of "Wouldn't You Like to Know"
"To enter the portals of Pokrassland is to go on a magical journey: here there are sex-charged buffalo men and melancholic women who fear six-foot spiders and fall in love with their therapists. It's a place where people make bald statements and odd connections, where there are strange animals, purple stars and 'a deep-ruby moon'. Unpredictable, funny and charming, the world Meg Pokrass builds in The Dog Seated Next to Me is a location readers will enter gladly and, mesmerised, they will most definitely want to stay."
--Nuala O'Connor, author of "Joyride to Jupiter" and "Becoming Belle"
