From the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood , Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield is “sublime” ( The Chicago Tribune ), a suspenseful and hilarious “ suburban comedy of manners par excellence” ( Kirkus Reviews ) that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Twenty Best Places to Live in America, is full of psychologists and college professors, proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and quaint village center. Yet when sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived in Littlefield to study the elements of “good quality of life” someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Are the poisonings in protest to an off-leash proposal for Baldwin Park—the subject of much town debate—or the sign of a far deeper disorder? “Nothing sucks a reader in like psychological menace, and Suzanne Berne is a master of the craft…. Her scenes are elegantly composed, and even throwaway characters jump off the page” ( The New York Times ). A wry exploration of the discontent concealed behind the manicured lawns and picket fences of darkest suburbia, The Dogs of Littlefield explodes with “comic exuberance and restrained beauty” ( The Boston Globe ). “Berne ( Missing Lucile , 2010, etc.), who won the Orange Prize for her first novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood (1997), is a sure hand at the dinner parties, school concerts, teacup tempests, and true moments of suspense that make a suburban comedy of manners par excellence. It's too bad about the dogs, but they died for a good cause.” — Kirkus (Starred Review) “A compelling, poignant yet unsentimental novel that examines life, love and loss. Original and brilliant” – Sunday Mirror “Nuanced, thoroughly enjoyable, excellent” – Guardian “Very well ­written, devastating and funny … insightful, too. Highly recommended” – Daily Mail “Brilliantly done. Gentle and often moving” – Sunday Times “Well-observed shrewd satire … sharp, funny and painful. Berne takes the domestic and turns it into the majestic” – Sunday Telegraph "Her unique voice comes through in the combination of a forensic approach to her characters’ foibles and lyrical descriptions of the changing of the seasons in New England. This is an apparently light tale but there are dark shadows in Littlefield too. Berne’s novel is both absorbing and amusing, and lingers in the memory." — The Independent (UK) "A look at suburban life that manages to be both scathing and sympathetic, Berne’s latest is a smart,amusing satire." —Booklist Suzanne Berne is the author of?four previous novels: The Dogs of Littlefield ;? The Ghost at the Table ;? A Perfect Arrangement ; and? A Crime in the Neighborhood , winner of Great Britain’s Orange Prize. She lives outside of Boston with her husband. The Dogs of Littlefield 1. No one was very surprised when the signs began appearing in Baldwin Park. For years people had been letting their dogs run free in the meadow to the west of the elementary school without attracting much notice; but once an authorized off-leash “dog park” was proposed and a petition presented to the Littlefield Board of Aldermen, fierce arguments erupted over whose rights to the park should be upheld, and the town broke into factions: those who loved dogs and those who did not, at least not in the park. At first the signs were polite reminders to dog owners to curb and pick up after their dogs. PLEASE RESPECT THE PARK, they read. Or THE PARK IS FOR ALL OF US. But as the off-leash proposal gained support among the aldermen, several of whom owned dogs themselves, the signs became more pointed. On St. Patrick’s Day, a sign was posted on a telephone pole at the frontier of the elementary school playground where wood chips gave way to grass and dog-walking parents often congregated after escorting their children to school. Printed in blue ink on the kind of thin, flexible cardboard that comes slipped inside of men’s dress shirts, it read: Pick up after Your Dog. Aren’t You Ashamed that You Don’t? This sign created a small uproar among the parents, who objected to its tone, and it was taken down by the custodian. Then, on March 21, according to the “Crime Watch” column in the Littlefield Gazette, an unidentified man threatened to shoot an unleashed dog for colliding with his bicycle while he was riding in the park; the dog owner reported this threat to the police. The man had dark facial hair, “scruffy” was her actual term, and was between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. A description, she acknowledged, that fit half the young men in Littlefield. Not long after the collision between dog and cyclist, another sign appeared overnight on a telephone pole, this one at the eastern edge of the park, bordering Endicott Road. On the back of a brown paper shopping bag, in large crude black letters, was written: Leash Your Beast Or Else It was also quickly taken down,