{"id":6427,"date":"2011-09-21T13:28:19","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T17:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=6427"},"modified":"2016-07-08T15:50:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T19:50:30","slug":"callan-wink-dog-run-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2011\/09\/21\/callan-wink-dog-run-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Callan Wink: “Dog Run Moon”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dog Run Moon\"<\/strong><\/span>\r\nby Callan Wink<\/span>\r\nOriginally published in the September 26, 2011 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/span><\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Wink is a debut author from the west, where I grew up, and for whatever reason those types of short stories usually work for me.\u00a0On the one hand, I really liked this story.\u00a0It’s quick and fun and interesting.\u00a0On the other hand, I’m not sure the ending worked for me — so please let me know your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n
“Dog Run Moon” has a simple premise.\u00a0Sid, the narrator, is running naked in the moonlight alongside a dog, while Montana Bob and his accountant, Charlie Chaplin, chase him down on an ATV.\u00a0Sid’s feet are getting torn on the rocks.\u00a0Here’s how the story begins:<\/p>\n
Sid was a nude sleeper.\u00a0Had been ever since he was a little kid.\u00a0To him, wearing clothes to bed seemed strangely redundant, like wearing underwear inside your underwear or something.\u00a0And that was why he was now running barefoot and bare-assed across the sharp sandstone rimrock far above the lights of the town.\u00a0It was after two in the morning, clear, cool, early-June night, with the wobbly gibbous moon up high and bright, so that he could see the train yard below — the crisscrossing rails, a huge haphazard pile of old ties, the incinerator stack.\u00a0He was sweating, but he knew that once he could run no more the cold would start to find its way in.\u00a0After that, he didn’t know what would happen.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The dog, technically, is Montana Bob’s, but after one bad day Sid “liberated” it.\u00a0So, in a way, this is all about a dog, though there’s a subtext.\u00a0Here’s a glimpse, when Sid is worried the dog will give away their position:<\/p>\n
The problem was the dog.\u00a0Sid would have to cut a wide path around to keep the dog from straying close to the lights, and, if the dog was captured, then what was the point?\u00a0Another thought: might the dog return to its former owner willingly?\u00a0Sid was unsure.\u00a0He kept running.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The day Sid liberated the dog he was on his way home after a failed visit to “her,” a nameless woman Sid had spent “years of nights” with.\u00a0They were both naked sleepers, but one night she got into bed with some clothes, and the next she didn’t come to bed at all.\u00a0So, who knows if this dog needed liberating or whether Sid is even good for it, but he likes to run.\u00a0As the night goes on, Sid’s mind waxes poetic and imagines what he’d tell her:<\/p>\n
Since we dissolved I’ve been a spectre running blind and naked in the desert.\u00a0Is that melodramatic?\u00a0Well, that’s what is happening to me now.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At any rate, even though I’m not sure how I feel about it, I really liked reading it and I’m anxious to hear others’ thoughts.\u00a0How does this all tie together?\u00a0What’s with the dissolving and the evaporation — and the feet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week’s New Yorker fiction is Callan Wink’s “Dog Run Moon.” Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[285,94],"tags":[],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-6427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-callan-wink","category-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Dog-Run-Moon.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-1FF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19180,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions\/19180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}