Bring Out the Dog

Stories

By: Will Mackin

Narrated by: Will Mackin

Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

“A near-miraculous, brilliant debut.” (George Saunders, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo)

“In one exquisitely crafted story after the next, Will Mackin maps the surreal psychological terrain of soldiers in a perpetual war.” (Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment)

Winner of The Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

The 11 stories in Will Mackin’s mesmerizing debut collection draw from his many deployments with a special operations task force in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began as notes he jotted on the inside of his forearm in grease pencil and, later, as bullet points on the torn-off flap of an MRE kit. Whenever possible, he incorporated those notes into his journals. Years later, he used those journals to write this book.

Together, the stories in Bring Out the Dog offer a remarkable portrait of the absurdity and poetry that define life in the most elite, clandestine circles of modern warfare. It is a world of intense bonds, ancient credos, and surprising compassion - of success, failure, and their elusive definitions. Moving between settings at home and abroad, in vivid language that reflects the wonder and discontent of war, Mackin draws the listener into a series of surreal, unsettling, and deeply human episodes: In "Crossing the River No Name", a close call suggests that miracles do exist, even if they are in brutally short supply; in "Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night", the death of the team’s beloved dog plunges them into a different kind of grief; in "Kattekoppen", a man struggles to reconcile his commitments as a father and his commitments as a soldier; and in "Baker’s Strong Point", a man whose job it is to pull things together struggles with a loss of control.

Told without a trace of false bravado and with a keen, Barry Hannah-like sense of the absurd, Bring Out the Dog manages to capture the tragedy and heroism, the degradation and exultation, in the smallest details of war.

Praise for Bring Out the Dog:

“Cuts through all the shiny and hyped-up rhetoric of wartime, and aggressively and masterfully draws a picture of the brutal, frightening, and even boring moments of deployment.... The Things They Carried, Redeployment, and now Bring Out the Dog: war stories for your bookshelf that will last a very long time, and serve as reminders of what America was, is, and can still become.” (Chicago Review of Books)

©2018 Will Mackin (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Unforgettable.... It is the language as much as the experience that drives the action, creating taut, almost terrifying suspense. Mackin’s masterful prose is both poetic and aggressive." (Publishers Weekly)

Powerful

This is a powerful story told in a way that brings you close to what they author felt as a NAVY SEAL in the field. I found myself haunted by the stories and the intensity of what these guys did every day. This is not the typical macho SEAL book but instead a sensitive stream of thought and feelings generated by each mission these guys completed and the cumulative intensity of it all. I was sorry when it ended. Highly recommended.

Reminds me of Tim O'Brien

Will Mackin narrates his own stories in this collection. They are about the war in Afghanistan in the same way The Things They Carried is about the Vietnam War: the battlefield is more than a setting, but war is not the ultimate reason these stories exist.

It feels like we are listening to Mackin's internal monolog as he's working through emotional baggage related to questionable wartime acts. He doesn't question his orders or the reason he's fighting in the desert in the first place, but he's very philosophical about the locals he encounters and the lives they are living. There is nothing overtly political in these stories; he's just a guy doing his job.

He's a very calming, mellow narrator, which lends a strange feeling when he's describing very tense situations like searching a house for Taliban fighters. His tone is the opposite of his unit's stated methodology: Swift and Violent.

His metaphors are fresh and weird, but I almost always got the impression he was aiming for.

The unglamorous side of special teams

I listened to this on a single session. Compelling, honest, and evocative. It seemed like I was along on the missions, not as a participant, but as an observer. An antidote to the glorification of violence while still honoring the dedicated military units mentioned. I wish it was longer.

A Real Treat For Short Story Fans

This is an excellent collection of short stories that make you feel is if you are right in the middle of the action, as well as inside of the head of the author. Characters of each story are painted with the literary skill that reminded me of John Cheever or Flannery O’Conner. I finished the book wishing for more. Hopefully there will be more.

Unique and very interesting descriptions of military service and life in general

This is one of the best books I’ve listened to in a long time. The author is the narrator and not a natural spoken word story teller but damn, can the guy write! I really like that he didn’t hire an actor to voice his book. He speaks in a direct, deadpan manor, communicating information with efficiency. There are few wasted words.