APR/ MAY 08 - AudioFile
Not just another dog story, Matt Haig’s dark satire features Labrador Prince and the code of ethics, “the pact,” that guides his role with his human family. Simon Jones is superb portraying an array of dog characters with voices that convey their characters as well as their species—for example, wise, brutish, or gregarious. The family’s cat, Lapsang, gets a wonderfully languid voice that Jones nails with perfect ennui. Listeners will enjoy Prince’s studies of “wag control” and “pleasure sniffing,” delivered with impeccable timing and tone. The story takes a dark turn, as the hollowness of suburban life eats away at Prince’s family. The dialogue and portraits of the teenagers are well done. Jones stays perfectly in tune as the story takes some unusual turns and the frolic ends. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Alison McCulloch
Dark, comic and quite brilliantly adult, Haig's thinking animals never stray into the sickly sweet zone.
—The New York Times
Molly Gloss
Haig's book steers far north of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, if not quite into the epic neighborhood of Animal Farm and Watership Down. The animal perspective is fully adult—a puckish slant on the disillusionments of modern domestic life…As Haig pushes beyond the usually somber boundaries of Urban Dysfunctional Fiction, maybe we should just enjoy his novel for what it is: a wry, serio-comic family tail, er, tale, for our serio-comic times.
—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Award-winning narrator Simon Jones does not rest on his hind legs, as Prince, the black Lab who narrates this novel, might put it. Prince has a lot to say, and though Jones is generally even-toned and thoughtful, he can make Prince sound confused, excited, panicky, sad and remorseful. In addition to Prince, Jones takes on a large cast of humans, canines and one feline. Falstaff, a springer mix, is so hyper that Jones makes listeners imagine the mutt bouncing up and down. Prince's master, Adam, comes across as a shaky voice of reason who attempts to cover up his insecurities and desires. Emily, an aroma therapist and Adam's illicit love interest, sounds girlish and a bit dizzy. The novel is more kibble than meat; however, Jones's brilliant performance will have listeners howling with glee and begging for more. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 19, 2007). (Feb.)
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Kirkus Reviews
A faithful family friend gives his all for "his" human family in this modern beast fable, another revisionist romp from the British author of The Dead Fathers Club (2007). This one, originally published in the UK in 2004 as The Last Family in England, is narrated by Prince, a handsome Labrador dog, who "speaks" with other nonhuman creatures and communicates with humans by means of therapeutic tail-wagging and crotch-sniffing, and well-timed warning barks. We first meet Prince in the veterinarian's office. Schoolteacher Adam Hunter has taken the beloved pooch to be put down-for reasons then explained in a book-length flashback. Prince admits he has violated the eponymous Pact adhered to by all Labradors, "the only dogs left who were willing to devote our lives to the protection of our masters." As Prince explains (during walks in the park) to his "mentor" Henry, a sagacious retired police dog, the Hunters are a pawful. The aforementioned Adam is, in full midlife-crisis mode, under the spell of bewitching young aromatherapist Emily. Adam's spouse Kate is puzzlingly unsettled by their re-acquaintance with Emily's shark-like husband Simon, Adam's former pal, who also, it appears, has a history with Kate. And the Hunters' teenagers, Hal and Charlotte, are . . . well, teenagers. Inflamed emotions and miscellaneous misbehavior intensify, and corpses of multiple species begin piling up, as Prince struggles to avert the worst, inspired by the Pact's dictum: "If one human Family is secure and happy, it means there is security and happiness beyond." The novel works because its central conceit, and Prince, are real charmers. But the narrative is skimpy and redundant, perilously cute and clogged withanticipations of Haig's Shakespeare-inflected The Dead Fathers Club (besides Prince, there are fellow mutts Falstaff and Lear). By no means a failure, but Aesop and Orwell did it better. Agent: Caradoc King/AP Watt
Veronique de Turenne
All roads lead to Shakespeare for Matt Haig, which turns out to be a good thing. There's no one quite like the Bard for barging head-first into a tale of death, desperation, and betrayal, and wringing out some laughs along the way. No flinching, no sentimental sap, no turning back.
That's how Haig played it in his weird and wonderful debut novel, The Dead Father's Club, a modern re-working of Hamlet, and that's how he hands us The Labrador Pact, an offbeat look at domestic life through the eyes -- and voice -- of the family dog.
The dog in this case is Prince, a Labrador rescued some years back by the Hunter family, a perfect-on-the-outside unit of two parents, a son, and a daughter. The truth, as we soon learn, is that Prince actually rescued the Hunters. He saw them from the behind the bars of his cage at the pound and decided they would be his: "So instead of chewing my testicles abstractedly, as I had when every other sorry prospect walked past, I sat up and made an effort. The perfect dog for the perfect Family," Prince tells us.
Ensconced in his suburban paradise, Prince soon meets his mentor, a yellow lab named Henry. Henry teaches Prince all about the ancient Labrador Pact, an ethos whose many edicts boil down to "Duty Over All." That duty is to protect the family unit at all costs: "We are the last dogs to understand the need for duty over all," the pact states. "We are the last to realize that human Families hold the key to our future survival."
Henry also explains the finer points of the Springer Uprising, a rebellion in which pleasure-seeking spaniels have undermined the canine devotion to duty that keeps the human world from flying apart. With lessons like Advanced Wag Control (the key to sustained family happiness) and Sensory Predictive Awareness (how to smell trouble before it happens), Henry hands Prince the keys to his kingdom.
Which is as good a time as any to talk about Henry IV, Part One, the Shakespearean history play upon whose warp and woof (sorry) Haig's odd novel is laid out. In the play, Prince Hal wavers between his filial duty as the future king of England and the pleasure-soaked world of his pal Sir John Falstaff. Prince-the-dog knows full well his duty to his family, but he has a Falstaff of his own -- that's the name of the springer spaniel mix across the park -- who does his best to lead the Lab astray.
Here's Prince, under the influence after a bit of (forbidden for Labs) pleasure-sniffing: "As I inhaled, a wild and heady cocktail of smells hit me. Rich earth, leaf juice, worm blood, squirrel droppings. I recognized each smell, but had never experienced them with such intensity. Time stopped, or shifted sideways. My whole body dissolved into the air. I couldn't feel my paws."
Overlaid on the Shakespearean tale is the human story of the Hunters. Adam and Kate (yes, more Shakespearean echoes) have two kids, a mortgage, a shaky marriage, and more than a few secrets between them. For no reason we can discern, they haven't had sex in years.
Prince, whose sense of smell tells him what people are feeling, knows great danger has arrived when a new couple moves into the big house across the park. Simon, an old acquaintance, still has a thing for Kate. His young and sexy wife, Emily, makes it her job to seduce Adam. Prince finds himself caught in the middle, knowing all (thanks to that remarkable doggy nose) but able to do little.
The adults go astray, the kids misbehave, and Prince soon finds betrayal all around him. The people he is sworn to protect do stupid and destructive things, and wag though he might, Prince can't save them. The dogs he lives among -- Labs and springers both -- turn out to be not much better.
You can't help hearing the chilly echoes of Orwell's Animal Farm, though instead of the oppressions of Soviet totalitarianism, the subject here is the danger of the modern family. And then there's Lear, a Rottweiler whose speech is so peppered with f-bombs that not even a fragment of Haig's hilarious summation of Shakespeare's great play is left to quote.
Though there's plenty of plot to go around, The Labrador Pact feels strangely lean. Maybe it's the short, short chapters, which range from four words ("There was a sound") to several pages. Or it could be that Haig is being true to Prince's worldview, limited as it is to what his nose can tell him. --Veronique de Turenne
Veronique de Turenne is a Los Angeles–based journalist, essayist and playwright. Her literary criticism appears on NPR and in major American newspapers. One of the highlights of her career was interviewing Vin Scully in his broadcast booth at Dodger Stadium, then receiving a hand-written thank you note from him a few days later.
The Times (London)
Clearly destined to become a cult hit. I only wish my dog had thought of it first.
—Daily Mail
From the Publisher
[Narrator] Jone's brilliant performance will have listeners howling with glee and begging for more.
—Publishers Weekly
A comic tour de force.
—The Times of London
Ink Magazine
Highly engrossing, hilarious yet heart-breaking. - Ink Magazine
Daily Mail
Clearly destined to become a cult hit. I only wish my dog had thought of it first. - Daily Mail
APR/MAY 08 - AudioFile
Not just another dog story, Matt Haig’s dark satire features Labrador Prince and the code of ethics, “the pact,” that guides his role with his human family. Simon Jones is superb portraying an array of dog characters with voices that convey their characters as well as their species—for example, wise, brutish, or gregarious. The family’s cat, Lapsang, gets a wonderfully languid voice that Jones nails with perfect ennui. Listeners will enjoy Prince’s studies of “wag control” and “pleasure sniffing,” delivered with impeccable timing and tone. The story takes a dark turn, as the hollowness of suburban life eats away at Prince’s family. The dialogue and portraits of the teenagers are well done. Jones stays perfectly in tune as the story takes some unusual turns and the frolic ends. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
