Book Reviewed by Sofia Burgess

The Dogs of Babel, a debut novel by Carolyn Parkhurst, explores grief with a different approach. We meet Paul Iverson, whose life is up-ended by his wife Lexi’s sudden and strange death. Paul reacts to her death by believing that their dog, the only witness to Lexi’s death, might somehow learn to tell him what happened and how. Stricken with grief, and finding incongruities surrounding his wife’s accidental death, Paul begins earnest attempts at teaching the dog words. Paul is certain that the dog is withholding crucial knowledge- and if given the ability to communicate, she would tell all she saw on that fateful day.

The book, however, is more about the complex structure of intimacy and communication within a marriage than it is about Paul’s desire to teach the dog words. Sorrow and doubt over Lexi’s death lead Paul to examine the minutia of his daily life with Lexi. In remembering the texture of his marriage, Paul is faced with some hard truths, which he ultimately accepts. As the puzzle of Lexi’s death unravels, Paul is left embracing the enigma that she was. He no longer seeks to untie the cryptic tangle that was her life. In the end, he accepts her and makes peace with the death that left him stumbling and aching.