Even the Dogs

McGregor’s third novel begins with death and never really moves on from there. The cops arrive to find Robert’s dead body, but there’s something else going on: A crowd has formed, and we’re part of it. “They don’t see us, as we crowd and push around them. Of course they don’t. How could they. But we’re used to that.”

At first, the nature of this “we” McGregor has conscripted us into is unclear. We pile into the ambulance and follow along as the body is put through an autopsy and eventually cremated. Robert emerges to look back on his life, and it’s then that we figure out who we are: a collection of specters with a high pile of unfinished business. The ghostlike qualities of the “we”—who eventually splinter off into semiformed individuals—is also metaphorical. As the reels spin on their lives, it’s clear they’re people living in the margins, “invisible” to the common eye. Heather is a crack addict; Steve an alcoholic.

So, yes, the entire structure of the novel is a device to tell a series of stories compelling enough to be in no need of a device. In fact, McGregor has to spend so much time making the device click that it becomes more distraction than aid. There’s a certain tonal importance to it all; McGregor isn’t romanticizing these lives, and having them appear as ghosts lends a needed darkness. And the communal nature of the “we” speaks to a common experience for the walking invisible. Unfortunately, the affect eventually outweighs the effect.

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