At first I wondered how far a story from the point of view of a swearing cockney dog could go.
At least across post-apocalyptic London.
This tale is told mostly from the point of view of Lineker the dog, but alternates between him and the journal of his cripplingly shy owner, Reginald Hardy.
Lineker calls him "Two-Plates." Two Plates - Plates of Meat - Feet. Two Feet. Cockney rhyming slang is simple?!
I have to say of the two, Lineker is the most interesting. Once he got inside my head, I couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to think like a dog:
"I'm skittering and sliding, halfway across the floor before I even know I've left my bed. And he's rubbing his hairy face and scratching that huge arse of his, releasing that heavenly aroma of salt, peat and tripe that's all for me and before he knows what's happening I'm in the air and bouncing at him - bounce, bounce, bounce until he gets down and gives me a scratch...face-to-face so I get the sweet fog of his breath, a rich soup of saliva and half-digested food that's been marinating beautifully for the last eight hours. And it's too much, I just have to lick him..." (p.3)
The clever way that Adrian J. Walker describes a dog's consciousness had me believing it.
Did you know that dogs can smell history? That explains why they take so long at lampposts.
That's not all. Lineker reckons he can smell your dreams, too; memories; "the bone-bag abandoned on the moor," and fear. Fear smells like voles.
Squirrels? Oil and eggs, of course. And spices - "like ants exploding up my nose" (p.4).
The good people of London have been betrayed by their affiliations on social media. The tension builds as Reg and Lineker attempt to take a little girl to safety, crossing the lines of two factions fighting for control and discovering a group of resistors.
But first, Reg has to get up the gumption to leave his secure little nest. And his fear of people touching him.
Walker uses a bird motif to great effect through the story. Poetic, this links events and is a vehicle for Lineker's longing to escape the confines of regularity to explore the wildness of life.
Filled with "good bits" and "bad bits" poignant and pondering between small bouts of brutality, The Last Dog on Earth is also laugh out loud funny.
The Dog muses on the human condition since wolves came down from the hills to join the human's campfires; his adoration for his master, and food, among other things:
"I stand on the brink of this new world of breakfast, trembling like a pilgrim father in the waters of Cape Cod. And then it comes and the smell smashes into me...my bowl's on the floor and I'm in it, chomping it, inhaling it. By the time it's done, I can barely remember who I am or what it was I just ate..."
Walker played with my expectations at the end, delivering a twisted conclusion. I could have (almost) killed him.
Happy Year of the Dog!
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