reviews
Sarah Schofield writing at www.lancashirewritinghub.com
‘Dogs Chase Cars’ by Mark Porter Review by Sarah Schofield
Horatio Goodman, known to his friends as Harry, is the unlikely hero of Mark Porter’s debut novel. Brit Harry lives in Washington, moderately happily married to his quintessentially American wife Megan. He’s finding that life is not quite panning out as he had anticipated. Something is missing. In a half-hearted effort for change, Harry alters his career direction, from Store Guard to Private Detective. Harry conducts a series of relatively unsuccessful vigils trying to gather evidence for untrusting spouses, always accompanied by Sherlock, his dog, in their conspicuous yellow van. Following Megan’s eulogizing of her therapist, Caleb, Harry is persuaded to pay him a visit, too. But rather than nurturing his shrivelled confidence, Caleb spends their sessions speculating on Harry’s sexual proclivities and then seeks his professional help in discovering the source of some threatening letters he’s received.
Porter’s novel, published by independent writing collective Drugstore Books, has received wide attention, mostly through viral marketing and word of mouth. No mean feat. Mike Boon, comedian and writer, says: “Dogs Chase Cars made me laugh out loud… ” I’ll admit that I didn’t laugh out loud. But any book reviewed with or touting this claim normally turns me off immediately. It is unhelpful. It almost always oversells the funny, leaving the reader feeling vaguely cheated, when often the book in question is so much more than a bit of a LOL. I did, however, find Dogs Chase Cars very witty. Much of the humour is observational, which is no surprise given Porter’s stand-up background. One of the funniest sequences revolves around a very sticky incident that is as gross as it is comical and has put me off toffee-cookie ice cream for life.
Some reviewers describe Dogs Chase Cars as a crime novel or thriller. I feel these tags also sell Porter’s novel short. The crime and thriller aspects are not the main draw for me. True, it tips a satirically deglamorising wink at the private detective genre, and yes, one of the narrative threads is about a crime, but this thread is often fraying under the weight of far more intricately woven plots. Male friendships, the difficulties of maintaining closeness in marriage and discerning life’s fundamental priorities, are themes far more tightly sewn.
A challenging aspect of the book is Harry’s passivity. A lot happens around him, which he takes little control over. He waits for his life to organically change, he takes negligible action in sprucing up his marriage, he sits redundantly at the hospital in the aftermath of a serious attack on his friend Lambert. He is a bystander while stuff happens to other people. Harry does binge eat ice cream and have an ill-thought-through fight beside a urinal, and there is a latent charm in his characterisation. He is the commentator for everyone else’s stories. He is the sparring partner, the kickback… if I knew something about football and boxing, two other recurring themes in the novel, I would add other weak metaphors. This aspect of his character is aptly symbolised in his career history as a store guard, statically monitoring other people’s activities, and then as private detective, waiting for the drama to unfold in the lives of others.
About halfway through the novel, Harry seems to recognise this; “I have been doing an awful lot of standing back and observing of late, I am entering a period of action. It is time to start rolling my sleeves up and go hunting out the answers.” But despite this promise of transformation, Harry remains the narrator for the stories of those orbiting his world; a step away from the action. But I did enjoy the novel, so there is something compelling about this. Something honest. Not everyone is a go-getting, forward thinking, proactive type. Readers may, like me, find they can relate to Harry. And ultimately, these stories, of the people around him, are his story. The very title nods towards this, just as dog’s chase futilely after cars, so Harry acknowledges the futility of the many insecurities that blight his life, chasing after impossible aspirations and loosing sight of what’s important.
This novel is about Harry Goodman’s budding understanding that contentment is underpinned by the people you fill your life with, not your social status or career choices. It’s the American dream with a very British bent. Readers expecting crime and tense drama may be left wanting. But those seeking a shrewdly heartfelt and uplifting observance of what it is to be human will love it.
~
Sarah Schofield’s writing has appeared in various places, most recently Flash Mob’s Flash Fiction ebook and Lancaster’s inaugural publication of arts paper Back and Beyond. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and a radio play. She blogs at http://icallitresearch.blogspot.com and tweets as saraheschofield.
Neil Schiller:
"Very funny and deceptively intelligent."
I have to preface my review by saying I don't often read thrillers or private eye novels as I usually find them not terribly well written and a bit cliched. I also don't often read books that promise to make me laugh out loud as that's a big claim, and one that almost always lets me down. I tried this book as it's a debut novel by an author from the same city that I live in, and thank god for that geographical coincidence because it led me to one hell of an enjoyable read.
First and foremost, this IS a funny book. It did indeed make me laugh out loud on several occasions. The fact that Mark Porter used to be a stand-up comedian probably helps as the humour comes from the sort of observational material that some comics base their careers on. A lot of it revolves around the narrator's dog, but not in a sentimental dog-loving kind of way, more in an exasperated stepping-in-things, inappropriate-contact-with-parts-of-the-dog's-anatomy kind of way. But don't think for a second that the book is all about gags because there's a real intelligence to the way Mark Porter deals with relationships, especially the one between Horatio and his wife. There are sections in it that are incredibly well observed and insightful, and yet handled in a way that doesn't disrupt the overall comic tone. That did impress me a lot.
Ultimately, this book is something a bit different from the usual British crime novel. There are no hard drinking, divorced detectives, and neither are there any fast talking, womanising private eyes. The main character is an Englishman living in Washington with his American wife, crippled by a lack of drive and ambition and resorting to private investigation as a way to somehow, finally, make some money and contribute to the household finances. He takes on a string of seedy infidelity jobs and struggles to get his clients to pay, getting beaten up by men in slippers and derided by random strangers for photographing pensioners along the way. When his best friend gets shot the detective work starts to take a back seat, but then kind of re-emerges while he's dealing with those more personal issues.
I'd stop short of saying the book was flawless, but hey, what book is? As a debut novel this has to be up there with some of the best. And the characters were so engaging that I hope, in the tradition of the genre, they're resurrected for a sequel or two or a full blown series. Great book.
Neil Schiller is the author of the short story collection 'Oblivious.'
Matt Hadder:
Horatio - “Harry” - has a problem – a few problems, really. His marriage might be in jeopardy. His best friend crashed at his pad for two weeks and stayed for two years. Counseling is fruitless, his therapist more unhinged than he is. He can’t move forward with anything in his life because in every scenario, all he sees is absurdity. Everything lacks meaning for him. A prostitute offering “hand jobs, blow jobs, rim jobs and fist jobs” makes it all sound “like work.”
And Harry doesn’t want to work.
Trying his hand as a private investigator, specializing in cases of adultery, he can barely get himself to bother charging his clients – hoping instead to find that their spouses aren’t even cheating. His investigative talents, and better judgment, are put to the test, though, after an attempted murder on one of his friends launches Harry on an adventure that forces him to solve more than just a crime.
Dressed up in bawdy, occasionally even gross-out, humor, Dogs Chase Cars has wit – real wit - to spare. Almost every paragraph builds up to its own punch line, and delivers a blow every time, even a few knock-outs. Porter rarely misses a jab, handing out wry observations like they were kittens, cleverly setting the stage for Harry’s emotional transformation to re-engaging with his life, friends and family.
Mystery, humor, sex – it’s all there, but what elevates Dogs Chase Cars in the end is heart. Porter’s characters walk, talk and act like real people – he nails the dialogue, the interaction, the attractions, the challenges and the conflicts with subtlety and nuance, and has us laughing and rooting for Harry and his misfit circle of friends as they track down a would-be killer, and learn to take care of each other along the way.
With strains reminiscent of John Barth’s The End of the Road, or Jason Schwartzman’s character in HBO’s Bored to Death, Porter’s novel is a fun read – a humorous and compelling mystery with a heartfelt ending that draws a path from finding absurdity to finding meaning in our lives through the people we know and care about most. A great find.
Matt Hadder is the author of Seeing Crows and Twitch of the Death Camp. He lives in Albany, New York.
Mike Boon
"Dogs Chase Cars made me laugh out loud. Many times. It is reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen's books - an excellent crime drama coupled with hilarious dialogue and situations. In terms of laugh-a-minute romps, this is indeed one, but with slightly less romping than the average Jilly Cooper horse-fest. Porter has pulled one out of the hat with Dogs and if you asked me whether you should read it I would reply, "yes - definitely." Take this book up to the counter now and buy it. Unless you are shopping on-line, in which case you should add it to your 'cart' and proceed to the 'checkout' neither of which have a tangible existence outside the ether of the interworld.... um, anyway, in Mike Boon speak that basically means I totally loved it.
- Mike Boon is a stand-up comedian and writer. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
‘Dogs Chase Cars’ by Mark Porter Review by Sarah Schofield
Horatio Goodman, known to his friends as Harry, is the unlikely hero of Mark Porter’s debut novel. Brit Harry lives in Washington, moderately happily married to his quintessentially American wife Megan. He’s finding that life is not quite panning out as he had anticipated. Something is missing. In a half-hearted effort for change, Harry alters his career direction, from Store Guard to Private Detective. Harry conducts a series of relatively unsuccessful vigils trying to gather evidence for untrusting spouses, always accompanied by Sherlock, his dog, in their conspicuous yellow van. Following Megan’s eulogizing of her therapist, Caleb, Harry is persuaded to pay him a visit, too. But rather than nurturing his shrivelled confidence, Caleb spends their sessions speculating on Harry’s sexual proclivities and then seeks his professional help in discovering the source of some threatening letters he’s received.
Porter’s novel, published by independent writing collective Drugstore Books, has received wide attention, mostly through viral marketing and word of mouth. No mean feat. Mike Boon, comedian and writer, says: “Dogs Chase Cars made me laugh out loud… ” I’ll admit that I didn’t laugh out loud. But any book reviewed with or touting this claim normally turns me off immediately. It is unhelpful. It almost always oversells the funny, leaving the reader feeling vaguely cheated, when often the book in question is so much more than a bit of a LOL. I did, however, find Dogs Chase Cars very witty. Much of the humour is observational, which is no surprise given Porter’s stand-up background. One of the funniest sequences revolves around a very sticky incident that is as gross as it is comical and has put me off toffee-cookie ice cream for life.
Some reviewers describe Dogs Chase Cars as a crime novel or thriller. I feel these tags also sell Porter’s novel short. The crime and thriller aspects are not the main draw for me. True, it tips a satirically deglamorising wink at the private detective genre, and yes, one of the narrative threads is about a crime, but this thread is often fraying under the weight of far more intricately woven plots. Male friendships, the difficulties of maintaining closeness in marriage and discerning life’s fundamental priorities, are themes far more tightly sewn.
A challenging aspect of the book is Harry’s passivity. A lot happens around him, which he takes little control over. He waits for his life to organically change, he takes negligible action in sprucing up his marriage, he sits redundantly at the hospital in the aftermath of a serious attack on his friend Lambert. He is a bystander while stuff happens to other people. Harry does binge eat ice cream and have an ill-thought-through fight beside a urinal, and there is a latent charm in his characterisation. He is the commentator for everyone else’s stories. He is the sparring partner, the kickback… if I knew something about football and boxing, two other recurring themes in the novel, I would add other weak metaphors. This aspect of his character is aptly symbolised in his career history as a store guard, statically monitoring other people’s activities, and then as private detective, waiting for the drama to unfold in the lives of others.
About halfway through the novel, Harry seems to recognise this; “I have been doing an awful lot of standing back and observing of late, I am entering a period of action. It is time to start rolling my sleeves up and go hunting out the answers.” But despite this promise of transformation, Harry remains the narrator for the stories of those orbiting his world; a step away from the action. But I did enjoy the novel, so there is something compelling about this. Something honest. Not everyone is a go-getting, forward thinking, proactive type. Readers may, like me, find they can relate to Harry. And ultimately, these stories, of the people around him, are his story. The very title nods towards this, just as dog’s chase futilely after cars, so Harry acknowledges the futility of the many insecurities that blight his life, chasing after impossible aspirations and loosing sight of what’s important.
This novel is about Harry Goodman’s budding understanding that contentment is underpinned by the people you fill your life with, not your social status or career choices. It’s the American dream with a very British bent. Readers expecting crime and tense drama may be left wanting. But those seeking a shrewdly heartfelt and uplifting observance of what it is to be human will love it.
~
Sarah Schofield’s writing has appeared in various places, most recently Flash Mob’s Flash Fiction ebook and Lancaster’s inaugural publication of arts paper Back and Beyond. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and a radio play. She blogs at http://icallitresearch.blogspot.com and tweets as saraheschofield.
Neil Schiller:
"Very funny and deceptively intelligent."
I have to preface my review by saying I don't often read thrillers or private eye novels as I usually find them not terribly well written and a bit cliched. I also don't often read books that promise to make me laugh out loud as that's a big claim, and one that almost always lets me down. I tried this book as it's a debut novel by an author from the same city that I live in, and thank god for that geographical coincidence because it led me to one hell of an enjoyable read.
First and foremost, this IS a funny book. It did indeed make me laugh out loud on several occasions. The fact that Mark Porter used to be a stand-up comedian probably helps as the humour comes from the sort of observational material that some comics base their careers on. A lot of it revolves around the narrator's dog, but not in a sentimental dog-loving kind of way, more in an exasperated stepping-in-things, inappropriate-contact-with-parts-of-the-dog's-anatomy kind of way. But don't think for a second that the book is all about gags because there's a real intelligence to the way Mark Porter deals with relationships, especially the one between Horatio and his wife. There are sections in it that are incredibly well observed and insightful, and yet handled in a way that doesn't disrupt the overall comic tone. That did impress me a lot.
Ultimately, this book is something a bit different from the usual British crime novel. There are no hard drinking, divorced detectives, and neither are there any fast talking, womanising private eyes. The main character is an Englishman living in Washington with his American wife, crippled by a lack of drive and ambition and resorting to private investigation as a way to somehow, finally, make some money and contribute to the household finances. He takes on a string of seedy infidelity jobs and struggles to get his clients to pay, getting beaten up by men in slippers and derided by random strangers for photographing pensioners along the way. When his best friend gets shot the detective work starts to take a back seat, but then kind of re-emerges while he's dealing with those more personal issues.
I'd stop short of saying the book was flawless, but hey, what book is? As a debut novel this has to be up there with some of the best. And the characters were so engaging that I hope, in the tradition of the genre, they're resurrected for a sequel or two or a full blown series. Great book.
Neil Schiller is the author of the short story collection 'Oblivious.'
Matt Hadder:
Horatio - “Harry” - has a problem – a few problems, really. His marriage might be in jeopardy. His best friend crashed at his pad for two weeks and stayed for two years. Counseling is fruitless, his therapist more unhinged than he is. He can’t move forward with anything in his life because in every scenario, all he sees is absurdity. Everything lacks meaning for him. A prostitute offering “hand jobs, blow jobs, rim jobs and fist jobs” makes it all sound “like work.”
And Harry doesn’t want to work.
Trying his hand as a private investigator, specializing in cases of adultery, he can barely get himself to bother charging his clients – hoping instead to find that their spouses aren’t even cheating. His investigative talents, and better judgment, are put to the test, though, after an attempted murder on one of his friends launches Harry on an adventure that forces him to solve more than just a crime.
Dressed up in bawdy, occasionally even gross-out, humor, Dogs Chase Cars has wit – real wit - to spare. Almost every paragraph builds up to its own punch line, and delivers a blow every time, even a few knock-outs. Porter rarely misses a jab, handing out wry observations like they were kittens, cleverly setting the stage for Harry’s emotional transformation to re-engaging with his life, friends and family.
Mystery, humor, sex – it’s all there, but what elevates Dogs Chase Cars in the end is heart. Porter’s characters walk, talk and act like real people – he nails the dialogue, the interaction, the attractions, the challenges and the conflicts with subtlety and nuance, and has us laughing and rooting for Harry and his misfit circle of friends as they track down a would-be killer, and learn to take care of each other along the way.
With strains reminiscent of John Barth’s The End of the Road, or Jason Schwartzman’s character in HBO’s Bored to Death, Porter’s novel is a fun read – a humorous and compelling mystery with a heartfelt ending that draws a path from finding absurdity to finding meaning in our lives through the people we know and care about most. A great find.
Matt Hadder is the author of Seeing Crows and Twitch of the Death Camp. He lives in Albany, New York.
Mike Boon
"Dogs Chase Cars made me laugh out loud. Many times. It is reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen's books - an excellent crime drama coupled with hilarious dialogue and situations. In terms of laugh-a-minute romps, this is indeed one, but with slightly less romping than the average Jilly Cooper horse-fest. Porter has pulled one out of the hat with Dogs and if you asked me whether you should read it I would reply, "yes - definitely." Take this book up to the counter now and buy it. Unless you are shopping on-line, in which case you should add it to your 'cart' and proceed to the 'checkout' neither of which have a tangible existence outside the ether of the interworld.... um, anyway, in Mike Boon speak that basically means I totally loved it.
- Mike Boon is a stand-up comedian and writer. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.