The Dogs of March

Authors

Ernest Hebert, Dartmouth CollegeFollow

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

1979

Publication Title

The Dogs of March (Darby Chronicles)

Department

Department of English and Creative Writing

Abstract

"His life had come to this: save a few deer from the jaws of dogs. He was a small man sent to perform a small task." Howard Elman is a man whose internal landscape is as disordered as his front yard, where native New Hampshire birches mingle with a bullet-riddled washer, abandoned bathroom fixtures, and several junk cars. Howard, anti-hero of this first novel in Ernest Hebert's highly acclaimed Darby series, is a mixture too. Howard's battle against encroaching change symbolizes the class conflict between indigenous Granite Staters scratching out a living and citified immigrants with "college degrees and big bank accounts." Like the winter-weakened deer threatened by the dogs of March -- the normally docile house pets whose instincts arouse them to chase and kill for sport -- Howard, too, is sorely beset.

Comments

This title is part of the Darby novels series which include:

• The Dogs of March

• A Little More Than Kin

• Whisper My Name

• The Passion of Estelle Jordan

• Live Free or Die

• Spoonwood

• Howard Elman's Farewell

Original Citation

Hebert, Ernest. The Dogs of March. Viking, 1979.

Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation

Hebert, Ernest, "The Dogs of March" (1979). Dartmouth Scholarship. 3954.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/3954