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Searching for 'The Lost Dog' in the Australian Bush makes for an intriguing story

Date published: 6/1/2008

IT'S NOT a shaggy-dog story, since the lost dog's coat is never specified and neither is its breed or name. Early on in Michelle de Kretser's "The Lost Dog," readers learn that the dog has wandered away from its master, Tom Loxley, an Anglo-Indian lit prof doing a study of Henry James at a friend's cottage in the Australian bush. And it is not until near the end that the dog No, best not spoil the few surprises worth waiting for.

To Tom, the dog was "handsome, sweet-natured," and lovable, but "his core was wild," and "in accommodating that unruliness, Tom's life flowed in a broader vein." So Tom becomes obsessed.

The dog had been a gift to his wife who left both behind for a dashing human-rights lawyer. The cottage belongs to Tom's current flame, Nelly Zhang, an offbeat artist who welcomes his friendship but resists his overtures. Nelly, too, is of mixed race, and the novel explores the uneasy search of post-empire survivors to locate themselves in adopted cultures. Herself Sri Lankan, the author has settled in Australia where her novels are widely read.

Nelly Zhang was also married, in her case to a risk-prone investor who vanished near a lake when his creditors and the law were closing in. To a degree then, both Tom's and Nelly's lives are put on hold until the mysteries of the missing can be resolved.

Despite a tendency to jump between past and present, making for a jerky stop-and-go pace, the plot delivers on its intriguing premises.

Dan Dervin is a freelance writer living in Fredericksburg.

THE LOST DOG By Michelle de Kretser (Little Brown & Company, $24.99)

Date published: 6/1/2008