(TIDYING BY READING, PART 2)

There must have been someone here – in this interconnected world of ours – recommending me this book, but now I no longer remember who. I probably started reading «Between a Wolf and a Dog» more than a year ago, but then it slipped away, surfacing again in the big move.  

 «Between a Wolf and a Dog» is a novel by the late Australian author
Georgia Blain.

The title, «Between a Wolf and a Dog», is based on the French phrase L’heure
entre chien et loup, and refers to the twilight time — when falling darkness makes clear vision impossible; dogs might be mistaken for wolves, friends for foes; the line between faithful companion and savage predator, between civilization and wildness, darkness and light, the known and the unknown, life and death – is blurred.

The story in «Between a Wolf and a Dog», recollected in as few words as
possible, is this:

Ester, one of four main characters, is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the anxieties of the middle class: loneliness, relationships, death. She spends her days helping others
find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed.
Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to fall in love again. Meanwhile, her sister April is struggling through a rather directionless life; Lawrence’s past decisions are catching up with him; and Ester and April’s mother, Hilary, is about to make a choice that will profoundly affect them all.

Mainly set in one day, the story is told by 4 characters, from four different points of view. On the day in question, every character is in a liminal zone (l’heure entre chien et loup), a place of flux and cusp, moving through a scary transition from one state to another. A place where change is bound to happen. 

This is the first book by Blain I’ve read. Its beautifully written; quiet – but
also insisting, raw emotions painted out in a wonderful prose. I’m very happy to have re-discovered it in my pile of yet unread books. And I am thankful to whoever recommended it to me — a long time ago …