Out of a Shakespearean-wild Midwest dust storm, a man rises. “Just a glimpse of him,” says his sister; “every inch of him,” says his guilt-filled lover. “Close your eyes,” says his nephew. “What about it?” asks his father. The cupboard is filled with lime Jell-O, and there are aliens, deadly kissing, and a restless, alcoholic mother who carries a gun. “Every family is this normal,” insists the narrator. “Whoever noticed my brother, with a family as normal as this?” the beleaguered sister asks. Against the smoky prairie horizon and despite his seizures, a brother builds a life. Imbued with melancholy cheer, Dog on Fire unfolds around a family’s turmoil, past loves, and a mysterious death. "A lyrical Midwestern gothic."— Publishers Weekly "If the novel's focus on the warping effects of grief, with only glancing speculation about what precisely is being grieved, makes it typical of contemporary fiction, Ms. Svoboda distinguishes herself with the peculiarity of her prose, which takes a darting, indirect approach that almost attains the abstraction of a tone poem."— Wall Street Journal Published On: 2023-03-10 "At turns hilariously absurd and gut-wrenchingly heartfelt, Terese Svoboda's Dog on Fire , published by the University of Nebraska Press, defies genre. Svoboda juggles comedy, mystery, tragedy, horror—and masters them all."—Brennie Shoup,  Superstition Review "Svoboda's writing is beautiful, rich, and poetic. This surprising novel is an intriguing and thought-provoking read."—Milana Marsenich,  Roundup Magazine "The mystery at the heart of Dog on Fire is compelling, but the real pleasure of the reading experience is Svoboda's punctuated lyricism, sentences and paragraphs that engulf the reader like the dust storm with which the novel begins."—Clifford Garstang,  Southern Review of Books Published On: 2023-03-08 "Svoboda's most recent novel finds the pulse between the every day and the absurd. A richly imaged novel from a writer at the top of her form."—Wendy J. Fox,  Electric Lit Published On: 2023-06-30 “With its fierce wit and insight, Dog on Fire is thrillingly alive to this bewildering moment. This novel about family, grief, and all the ways we remain mysteries to one another is both memorable and brilliant. I’m grateful for Terese Svoboda’s searing vision and for her singular, inventive prose, which always makes me see the world in an entirely new way.”—René Steinke, author of Friendswood “Tense, poignant, urgent, and at times scathing, with Dog on Fire Svoboda has performed the astonishing dual feat of writing what could be called a contemporary Dust Bowl Gothic novel and creating a pitch-perfect work depicting the feelings of rage, grief, and isolation that come with losing a loved one. Without a doubt, Dog on Fire is Svoboda at her finest.”—Rone Shavers, author of Silverfish “ Dog on Fire is a blisteringly perceptive novel about grief, secrets, and the intractability of love. The mysteries surrounding one man’s death, narrated alternately by his sister and his lover, yield no easy answers in this haunting and darkly witty reckoning.”—Dawn Raffel, author of Boundless as the Sky “Terese Svoboda has written a continually wonderful novel about grief, family, and the mysterious particularity of each human creature, and the natural secrets we insist on carrying. A terrific book.”—Joan Silber, author of Secrets of Happiness and Improvement Terese Svoboda is the award-winning author of twenty-one books of poetry, prose, memoir, biography, and translation, including the novel Bohemian Girl (Nebraska, 2011), the memoir Black Glasses Like Clark Kent , and two forthcoming books of fiction, Roxy and Coco and The Long Swim . 1 Out of a storm so thick with dust, a storm so charged with first-rate prelightning ions that the grit flashes and the car dials fade, a storm so dark no taillight shines through, though drivers have flicked on every emergency switch, out of a storm even this dust bowl state stops for, I spot my brother with a shovel. Men who shovel look alike. They all face where the wood joins the metal or at least their glance grazes there on its way to the shovel tip, so all you see is head or hat—in this case, a cap brim, most likely lettered Feed and Seed if I know my brother, tilted at some unreadable angle. What I can read while I creep the car forward, seeing and not seeing, is that he is not about to dig, he has dug; his shovel is now raised up. What he has dug swirls around us—me, in my car creeping through all this flying grit, and him, seen just in the time it takes to see, where lightning now laves and leaves. Don’t stop, moans the semi behind me, hauling cattle or, empty, having hauled. Don’t pull over, says the dust smacking the car. How do I know it’s him I’ve seen? Only my brother would dig beside the road in this dust, because he is a digger. Besides, the road’s right next to my father’s land, and along its perimeter my br