'The Dogs' is about
greyhounds and
Greyhound racing. It's a distillation of everything the author grew up with and the people
and dogs she knew as a child. Perhaps, in a way, it's an elegy to childhood. It's certainly full of all the things that people in
greyhound racing would never have ordinarily said out loud within the hearing of anybody but a child.
It's full of a unique testament to greyhound stadiums and greyhound owners and
greyhounds that are no longer with us. In 'The Dogs' you'll find portraits of legendary English greyhound stadia like 'White City' in West London and the dogs and owners who frequented these places.
A few of these places still survive today.. Bell Vue in Manchester, Walthamstow in London. But the heart of greyhound racing is still beating in Ireland, where so many of the author's father's dogs were whelped.
I personally attended a race meeting at Cork in Ireland. I don't know how to describe it really. It was at the end of a magnificent touring holiday in which we stayed at a very modest B&B which was little more than a bedroom in an ordinary dwelling house. But across the road was the race track .. and as luck would have it, the night we stayed in Cork was race night. Unforgettable.. like all the memories that are conjured up by the author in this book.