THE DOG STAR

Donald Windham | Author
New Afterword by the Author

• $14.95 paperback
• 224 pages
• 1-892514-09-5
• Fiction

A landmark classic of southern literature: a novel about the angst and tragic alienation of youth as relevant today as when first published fifty years ago.

“A very beautiful book.”— Albert Camus

the book

At last, almost fifty years after its original publication in 1950, The Dog Star is restored to print. Long regarded as a classic of southern literature, Windham's first published book is the story of 15-year old Blackie Pride, a protagonist who idealizes indifference and is hard to sympathize with; yet we do. Consumed by his memories of Whitey Maddox, a recent suicide at their juvenile detention school, Blackie increasingly holds what he considers the frailty and weakness of his friends and family in contempt. He roams the streets of Atlanta's inner-city "dry earth littered with chewing gum and candy bar wrappers, ice cream cups and wooden spoons, cigarettes and contraceptive packages" until he meets his tragic end.

the author

Born in Atlanta, Donald Windham now lives in New York city. He is the author or editor of ten books including a short story collection The Warm Country; novels The Hero Continues, Tanaquil, and Two People; and several memoirs and letter collections including Emblems of Conduct and Tennessee Letters to Donald Windham, 1940-1965. He collaborated with Williams on the play You Touched Me. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, in 1997 Windham was awarded the Editor's Choice Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation.

the praise

"Elegant, sparse prose. A literary high mark that deserves a much wider audience. Donald Windham is the Southern poet whose unadulterated prose flows as freely as the Chattahoochee River in springtime."—Douglas Brinkley, National Public Radio (Weekend Edition)

"Astonishing precision and subtlety."—Andrew Alexander, Creative Loafing

"Virtually flawless."—Washington Blade

"Lyrical. . . . Shines hard and sharp and unwavering . . . it shines the way the stars shine straight through the dark on cold, clear winter nights."—Augusta Magazine

"Before there was Tom Wolfe there was Windham."—Dale Neal, Asheville Citizen-Times

"A very beautiful book."—Albert Camus

"As profoundly relevant today as when first written."—Independent Publisher

"An engaging novel written by a compelling and gifted author."—Midwest Book Review

"The Dog Star marks the advent of probably the most distinguished new talent to appear in the last decade [whose] theme is of profound relevance to the tragedy of modern youth. It is the creation of an unadulterated artist."—Tennessee Williams

"A good, sincere, and highly gifted piece of work. . . . Simple, natural, and strong."—Thomas Mann in the New York Herald Tribune

"Unimpeachably authentic."—Times Literary Supplement

"Sheer poetry [and] stark beauty."—Richmond Dispatch

"A perceptive study of twisted idealism."—Atlantic Monthly

"Windham, I understand, has never learnt literature; he merely produces it."—E.M. Forster

"A writer of admirable quality, and one long deserved of a larger audience."—Truman Capote

"[Windham writes] with such integrity and a feeling of fidelity to time and place that not merely southerners will feel a sense of recognition, but all others as well."—Ralph McGill

"Extraordinary reading. . . . One reads but rarely with such gratitude and pleasure."—The Village Voice on Emblems of Conduct

"These are stories the young James Joyce might have written had he grown up in Atlanta instead of Dublin. Windham's downright power will gain him the eventual audience he deserves."—The New Times Book Review on The Warm Country