This was a fun mess of book. Loved the characters and the writing. Never read this wuthor before so looking forward to more.

This book is full of laughs and drama. Penny Rush is divorcing her husband and she goes home to grandparents that are crazy. Her mother and stepfather went missing in Australia over five years ago. Her unbalanced father provokes her and her grandmother Dr Pincer keeps bones and experiments in the refrigerator. She travels, are kind in van held together by duct tape. The book is full of highs and lows.

I felt completely seen while reading this novel about a woman in the liminal space where she's left job and philandering husband behind and is trying to navigate her way through caring-taking for cantankerous relatives, pacifying and avoiding successful ones, and making new friends in the awkward way you do when you're not sure what you have to offer. Penny is not someone who makes great decisions - so if that bothers you, this might not be the novel you want to read. However her decisions (or lack thereof) do make a sort of sense if you look at the world from the perspective of someone who has never fit in and who has not always had people in her life to look out for her. She gravitates to kindness and hides from vulnerability - choosing to spend her time with those who need her desperately even if they pretend they don't. Her criminal hoarder retired doctor of a grandmother, whose questionably qualified accountant loans Penny the use of his rust-bucket of a van, is one of the stand-out characters for sure. The mystery of her parent's disappearance and her and her grandfather's Australian adventure remind us that Penny has a lot to live for and a family that loves her - and her choice to sleep in the rusty van of an old and sick accountant is just that. Funny and wise, with annoyingly accurate insights about people and relationships - this is a lovely read that encourages opening yourself up to new experiences - albeit hopefully in more sensible ways.

This is the fourth nominee I've read from the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction longlist. While the dark humor and situational absurdity made it perhaps the most entertaining read yet, I doubt it will be shortlisted. On one hand, it likely won't be viewed as "serious" enough literature to win because it was genuinely fun to read. On the other, the ending was abrupt enough to be fairly unsatisfying. I still think I'd recommend it, but the loose threads are leaving an itch in the back of my brain. I'd love to re-read this for a book club and more thoroughly examine all its bits and pieces, as the threads probably aren't quite as loose as they appear after just one read.

I did not know what to expect when I started this book and I'm so glad I didn't -- I was sucked in immediately and read it in nearly a day. I couldn't put it down -- I loved the story, the pace, the writing and couldn't imagine what would happen next. I laughed out loud so much during this book but it also had its dark moments. I can't believe I haven't read more from this author and I shall promptly remedy that! Read this book!!

I absolutely loved this book, and I give it my highest recommendation. The Dog of the North comes out next week on March 14, 2023, you can purchase HERE, and I hope you consider reading this one!

The root beer tasted especially good. I would never have thought of having it myself. It was uncanny how a stranger might know what you needed better than you did yourself. I drank the whole thing immediately.

When I finished this maddening, marvelous book, it made me think about some of the reasons I love reading novels. There are the usual ones: encountering the snag and pull of a good story, discovering alternate POVs, seeing the breadth and depth of a fictional world, and falling into sheer escapism, but there also is another one. I am captivated by the mind-numbing richness and diversity of authors’ unique voices. And among them, a special place must be made for Elizabeth McKenzie, whose books are often described as “dazzlingly original,” “raw, weird, and hilarious,” “arch and whimsical,” and “delightfully frisky.” They are also unexpectedly profound, unpredictable, and full of twists and enticing subplots that are can branch out into fully realized dramas or left tantalizingly unexplored.

These traits and talents are on full display in “The Dog of the North,” which traces part of the winding geographical and life journey of Penny Rush, who is recovering from a disastrous marriage, an unhappy job, and the disappearance of her beloved geologist mother and stepfather 5 years ago in the Australian outback. The term “selfless” is quite apt to describe Penny who, along with feeling responsible for the world, or rather her little corner of it, seems adrift from a solid definition of self. “I could not move forward if I were to permit myself the full brunt of my feelings,” she states early on. But moving on she does, for a new start by traveling to Santa Barbara to help her mercurial and often vicious grandmother, Pincer, who has come to the attention of the Adult Protective Services after threatening at a Meals on Wheels staff member with a strange and possibly deadly weapon. Now Penny must disarm Pincer and “provide for her needs,” or there will be further involvement. Pincer’s house and property is in a critical and possibly actionable state of disarray and Pincer’s accountant, the charismatic toupee wearing and perhaps sharing Burt Lamprey has enlisted Penny’s aid for a sneak attack from a cleaning service and a weapon-hunting mission. What turns up though, among many other things, are Burt’s attractive married younger brother, many hospital visits for various characters, human remains, a sweet Pomeranian dog named Kweecoats, oddball failed business ventures road trips in a van named The Dog of the North, Penny’s meta-talented physician sister and her family; a talking fish, a grand quest involving another continent, and the unspooling of a mystery.

Penny’s life seems to be populated by menacing figures, including Pincer, who attacks Penny with a jewelry brooch, her grandfather’s second wife, Doris, who summarily evicts him on the basis of his aging, a spying, threatening neighboring tenant on Burt’s floor, and Penny’s volatile, terrifying biological father who has a long habit of stalking her, scaring her and disappearing. “I’ve always found it strange how quickly a person can lose control, how thin the veneer of civilized behavior really is,” Penny ponders, as will the reader.

McKenzie finds utter strangeness and cosmic satisfaction in her many characters and their obsessions. They are endlessly fascinating to watch, even as an we beg them to have some clarity, some self-awareness of the grand mess they are making of their lives. The hapless characters, including Penny, Burt, and her grandfather Arlo, often cross paths with those bristling with dogmatic passion and the outcome is usually unfortunate, but also usually enthralling, even as these characters are sometimes discarded or ignored for other new characters who bring their own dish of weird to the narrative table.

But this is a moveable feast, and McKenzie is mostly in control, and so adept at casting a phrase or description that it keeps the structure in place. At one point, after becoming disoriented on one of her many journeys and remembering disconnected pieces of her life, Penny wonders “if this was symbolically relevant-a miniature version of the past 10 years or so, a mess of jagged pieces that had never found a way to assemble into a sensible whole.” This is a good paradigm for the book. It is funny and compelling and whether the whole comes together or not, I would not miss this trip for anything. Recommended especially for those who feel their world is slipping into monotones and really for just about anyone. My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press.

Madcap, screwball. If this were a movie, that's how it would be described. The story is manic with the reader diving right in with Penny as she jumps from one crisis to another. McKenzie's writing is sharp, and I found myself laughing and entertained, but somewhere around the midpoint I began to find my attention sometimes wandering -- when everything is zany, the next over-the-top plot point loses its drama -- and then wondering, "What's the point? All this to what end?" I'm not sure I can answer that.

I liked this, but I don't think I'll remember it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

Delightful turns of phrase and subversive humor set this book apart from a typical slice-of-life story. It’s a 5-star extravaganza of deep and brilliant characterization, unique circumstances, and a surprise on most every page. Funny, moving, and gratifying in every way.

What a wild ride. This book is WEIRD, sometime just for the sake of being weird? But thoroughly enjoyable! With a whacky cast of characters that are as charming as they are perplexing, I sailed right through this book.

A delightful, hard-to-categorize book. Is it a family dramedy? Is it a road trip novel? Is it, kind of, a coming of age book? Probably all of these. Our main character is fresh out of a bad marriage and dives into the family issues that had been waiting for her on the other side of it. A dead body in her grandma's shed becomes the least of her concerns as she navigates awkward social situations and couch surfing to figure out her next steps. This book reminds me of LESS in its wry humor, where the plot is almost besides the point. I really enjoyed it.

Highly recommend this one! This was my first book to read by this author but definitely won't be my last. The characters will stay with you long after you finish the book and you will find yourself wishing the story would never end.

Many thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC of this fantastic, hilarious, charming read. I'm not familiar with the author's other books, but I read that she was a past National Book Award nominee, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with this, and I was correct.

The Dog of the North is the quirky, laugh-out-loud funny, yet often touching tale of Penny, a woman in her mid-30s who finds herself adrift at the novel's beginning--separated from her husband, homeless, jobless, and facing a escalating series of crises in her family. Her beyond-eccentric physician grandmother seems to be rapidly losing her grip on reality, her mother and stepfather have been missing in Australia for five years, and her elderly grandfather is facing a marital crisis of his own with his much-younger second wife. This book is populated by a cast of numerous colorful characters--including, most notably, Penny's grandmother's free-spirited accountant, Burt, whose life is based out of a ramshackle van (the titular "Dog of the North"); Burt's more subdued brother, Dale, an attorney; and Burt's Pomeranian, Kweecoats (named for a mispronunciation of a well-known fictional character...).

This brilliant, episodic (and, dare I say, quixotic) novel defies summary and needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated--my brief summary does not do the hemisphere-spanning plot justice. I will be purchasing a copy when it is released and definitely recommending this to my book club. This novel seems like it would be popular with fans of Fredrik Backman and other books with quirky, but lovable characters.

I love askew books, and this one is definitely askew. Penny Rush lives in California, is in her mid-thirties, and has yet to figure out her life, or herself. Her family moved to Australia her senior year of high school, while she staying in CA to finish school. Her parents have been missing in the Australian outback for five years. She has a husband who gave up his PhD program to open a knife sharpening business, and he has left her for a woman who runs a Christmas tree farm. Her birth father pops up periodically, which terrorizes her. Penny's grandparents have been acrimoniously divorced for 25 years, and they both need her immediate assistance for murky and not-quite-explained reasons. There is also strangely delightful account and his much younger brother. And a dog named Kweecoats.

So we have all these disconnected oddball people, bizarre asides, back stories, and ever-changing explanations. Penny is amorphous, even to herself. She's a hot mess, and the book is, too. But ... but ... but - I still liked Penny, and enjoyed the book thoroughly.

My only quibble (which I've come to sort of be okay with) is that the story really just ends abruptly. Not one of the bizzare sub-plots is explained, but maybe - just maybe - that's the point.

I quite enjoyed Elizabeth McKenzie’s last novel (The Portable Veblen), placing it on the more palatable end of the whimsical-to-precious scale, and her latest — The Dog of the North — takes that whimsy and adds on some darker layers that provide a provocative growth-through-pain story arc. McKenzie’s is a really unique voice: the blend of pain and playfulness felt a bit otherworldly, but the specific details anchor the novel in our recognisable reality of love and loss. I’m struggling a bit to capture the tone here, but I think that’s the point: who doesn’t struggle trying to articulate the weirdness of the world and being a human in it? McKenzie succeeds by keeping it weird-but-believable and I’m rounding this 3.5 up to four stars because it suited me fine.