GOOD DOGS DON'T MAKE IT TO THE SOUTH POLE

A dog and a widow navigate their new lives as a duo in this fiction debut.

Tassen is a one-man dog, and unfortunately, his man, The Major, has just taken his last breath. Now Tassen and widowed Mrs. Thorkildsen find themselves alone and faced with having to reconfigure their lives without him. This leads to journeys to the library and an interest in the 1911 race to the South Pole between Norway’s Roald Amundsen and Britain’s Capt. Robert F. Scott. Tassen is fascinated by Amundsen’s sled dogs, and Mrs. Thorkildsen tells him stories of how each dog met its fate, from being stuffed to eaten. Tassen is just getting used to his new normal when Mrs. Thorkildsen’s son and his family show up, seemingly concerned about how she’s getting on. Mrs. Thorkildsen assures them she’s fine, but is she? Tassen is a unique narrator, but the tone is all over the place, matter of fact and blunt and whimsical. It’s hard to get a feel for Tassen and, by extension, any other character. This is Thyvold’s first book to be published in the U.S. as well as his first work of fiction. His previous nonfiction book on Amundsen explains the intense amount of detail on the South Pole journey, which is unfortunately to the detriment of the main plot. The family thinks Mrs. Thorkildsen is losing her mind because she talks to and understands Tassen, but at one point a stranger does, too, and then it’s never mentioned again. The book is unsure of its own internal mythos, which throws everything else off.

An odd tone, uneven narrator, and lopsided plot hold this puppy back.