The Power of the Dog - by Thomas Savage (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in hardcover: Boston: Little, Brown, 1967.

Book Synopsis

Now an award-winning Netflix film by Jane Campion, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst: Thomas Savage's acclaimed Western is "a pitch-perfect evocation of time and place" (Boston Globe) for fans of East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain.

Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers -- one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet -- and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers' ranch shatters an already tenuous peace. From the novel's startling first paragraph to its very last word, Thomas Savage's voice -- and the intense passion of his characters -- holds readers in thrall.

"Gripping and powerful...A work of literary art." --Annie Proulx, from her afterword

Review Quotes

"The Power of the Dog offers so many pleasures readers will be forgiven if they do not immediately notice that it also engages the grandest themes-among them, the dynamics of the family, the varieties of loves, and the ethos of the American West. Put simply, The Power of the Dog is a masterpiece."--Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948

"A pitch-perfect evocation of time and place...Savage is a master of narrative technique."--Amanda Heller, Boston Globe

"A rich and challenging psychodrama...with echoes of East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain."--Peter Beech, The Guardian

"Savage writes like thunder and lightning...Some books are like aquifers under the desert. They rest patiently, bubbling up in springs when we most need them."--Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"Thomas Savage is a writer of real consequence...a masterful novelist."--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"Thomas Savage is a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art-the ability to illuminate and move."--The New Yorker

"A masterpiece...Were there justice in the world, we would all have read Savage's modern classic in high school."--Bonnie Johnson, Los Angeles Times

"I never met Tom Savage but we corresponded and spoke on the telephone several times after he contacted me saying he had read my short story 'Brokeback Mountain.' At that time I did not know this writer's books and he was kind enough to send me a copy of Power of the Dog which I read with dawning realization that here was a fine western writer whose work had been overlooked, perhaps because of homophobic prejudice."--Annie Proulx