Reviews

• Lo regalé, me dicen que esta bueno

• Very unusual story. Study of neglect and physical handicap. Wonderful evocation of love between man and his dog. Grippy and stark . Great read.

• This book has wiggled its way into my heart. I was afraid to finish it in case the ending was dissapointing...it was a perfect ending. I loved the book so much that I want to buy a hard copy so I can dip into it or lend it to someone who would appreciate it as much as i did. The book is hard to describe but it works on so many levels, so much more than about a dog and a man...the title confused me until I read that the words stand for the four seasons, the four seasons of their adventures, spring, summer, fall and winter.

• Wonderfully written. But so sad it makes for hard reading. I was scared to read the last few pages. In spite of that, don't miss it!

• SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER is Irish writer Sara Baume's first book, but she writes with a sureness that speaks of a real dedication to her craft. It is a novel that will be difficult to classify. The edition I read is the British one, from Windmill Books, but it was first published by Tramp Press, an Independent Irish Publisher, and has already gained considerable favorable recognition in Europe. An American edition from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will be published in March 2016. How to describe this strange novel? Magical? Maybe. Moving? Absolutely. Humorous? Yes, that too. Sad? Yes again. Wise. Well, yes again. It's just such a different kind of story. It's told by Ray, fifty-seven, a kind of orphan in that he never knew his mother. Grotesquely misshapen, huge, ugly and ungainly, Ray describes his manner of walking thusly: "I pitch, I clump, I flail." Mostly neglected by his cold-mannered father, who told people that his son was "not right," Ray was teased and abused as a child and never attended school. Yet he learned to read, with some help from a neighbor woman he knew simply as "Aunt," and displays an inquiring mind and an attention to nature and small things that is simply amazing. He has taught himself the names of birds, insects, plants and flowers. A horticulturist would love the countless references to the local flora around the village where Ray has spent his whole life. And there is a dog. And although dog lover readers will love this dog and the immediate attachment that springs up between the lonely man and the damaged beast, I would never label this a "dog book." The dog's name is One Eye, or ONEEYE, as his bone-shaped identification tag reads, and he bears the scars of "badger baiting," an ancient and brutal sport that still exists in some parts of the world. Ray finds One Eye at an animal shelter, looking for a "good ratter." Their friendship, however, is instant, as Rays soon muses - "What did I use to do all day without you. I can't remember." And soon after that (Ray's internal monologue is always addressed to the dog) - "I find it hard to picture a time when we were simultaneously alive, yet separate. Now you are like a bonus limb. Now you are my third leg, an unlimping leg, and I am the eye you lost." But don't get the idea this is just a warm-and-fuzzy old man and his dog story. Because it is so much more. Through their quick and ever-deepening bond, Ray is compelled to confront some dark secrets about his father. He talks to One Eye about everything - about how he became the shy, fearful person he is; about his interest in all things, his disenchantment with his Catholic faith. Initially - through the spring and summer - the dog is a source of joy and contentment to Ray, until a couple of ugly encounters with other dogs and their owners. Indeed, the kennel man at the shelter had warned Ray the dog was "a vicious little bugger." Threatened with having to give up the dog, Ray and One Eye take to the road in his old car, wandering the countryside's back roads throughout the fall and into the winter. (In fact, when you look at the book's title, SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER, think seasons.) Ray's life is sad and empty until One Eye. The dog changes Ray, and changes his life too. But things get complicated, and it's still a cold and unfriendly world. And Ray's sense of sadness returns, as he considers the pointlessness of everyday life. "Boiling kettles, peeling potatoes, laundering towels, buying milk, changing lightbulbs, rooting wet mats of pubic hair out of the shower's plughole. This is the way people survive ... This is the way life's eaten away, expended by the onerous effort of living itself." Reading Baume's book brought to mind several films and books from the past - Jackie Gleason's GIGOT, Steinbeck's Lenny (but with an intellect), Art Carney and his cat in HARRY AND TONTO, or I HAVE HEARD YOU CALLING IN THE NIGHT, Thomas Healy's moving memoir of how a Doberman pup named Martin changed his life for the good. I thought too of Michel Tournier's novel, THE OGRE, than thirty years ago. But Sara Baume's story is, in the end, a one-of-a-kind book. Her language sometimes soars to poetic heights, but then might quickly drop down into some scatological doggy humor that anyone who has ever loved a dog will quickly recognize and relate to. SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER is simply terrific. I recommend it whole heartedly. Bravo and kudos to Ms. Baume. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

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