A Little Yellow Dog

Easy finally believes he can lead a simple life and leave his haunted past behind him—until he meets a woman who changes everything. November 1963: Easy's settled into a steady gig as a school custodian. It's a quiet, simple existence—but a few moments of ecstasy with a sexy teacher will change all that. When the lady vanishes, Easy's stuck with a couple of corpses, the cops on his back, and a little yellow dog who's nobody's best friend. With his not-so-simple past snapping at his heels, and with enemies old and new looking to get even, Easy must kiss his careful little life good-bye—and step closer to the edge.

Brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell, Yellow Dog is Martin Amis’ highly anticipated first novel in seven years and a stunning return to the fictional form. When “dream husband” Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system -- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the “yellow” journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed “intrusion” that rivets the world -- because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and drive of Yellow Dog. If, in the 21st century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. Yellow Dog is a model of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation. But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category-error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny. Meo heard no footsteps; what he heard was the swish, the shingly soft-shoe of the hefted sap. Then the sharp two-finger prod on his shoulder. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. They expected him to turn and he didn’t turn -- he half-turned, then veered and ducked. So the blow intended merely to break his cheekbone or his jawbone was instead received by the cranium, that spacey bulge (in this instance still quite marriageably forested) where so many delicate and important powers are so trustingly encased. He crashed, he crunched to his knees, in obliterating defeat. . . . -- from Yellow Dog

Everything Easy Rawlins and Mouse Alexander ever knew about friendship, and themselves, comes apart at the seams when they enter a steamy bayou world of voodoo, sex, revenge, and death.

"Jeremy lives in a small community where winters are long and stray dogs roam the streets. When peer pressure leads Jeremy into a bad prank, he is immediately struck with guilt - and that's when Jeremy's life changes forever. Trying to make amends Jeremy befriends Yellow Dog - and in the process meets a curious old man who introduces him to the adventures of dog sledding. Soon Jeremy is forming his own old-time dog team with Yellow Dog at lead - and in the process discovers more about himself - and the old man - than he ever thought possible."--Provided by publisher.

It's 1963. Easy Rawlins has given up the street life that has brought him so much trouble and grief. He's taken on a job as supervising custodian of Sojourner Truth Junior High School in Watts. Easy comes in early one morning to find one of the teachers already in her classroom. She has a dog with her and a story about a husband gone mad. Before he knows what's happening, the teacher is in his arms. Before the day is over the teacher is gone, leaving Easy with her dog, and the handsomest corpse Easy has ever seen is found in the school garden. That night a second corpse turns up. The police believe that Easy is involved in the murders. Old enemies are waiting to get even. The principal of the school wants to fire him. His old friends aren't the same and his new friends might be his death. Easy wants back into his careful little life, but that door is closed. A murderer is running loose somewhere. And a little yellow dog plots revenge.

This cute tale is about the life of a little yellow dog who has little yellow friends, and seems to live in a little yellow world. Simple rhymes makes this an easy-to-read story with a surprise ending.

What happens when one dog roams the countryside and makes a home for himself in every house? How can so many different people find themselves drawn together and become friends? What is it about this dog that makes people love him, whether they want to or not? Bailey is a city dog brought to the country, and he finds that it suits him better. Before long he’s roaming the woods and fields of the Hill, making friends everywhere that he goes. Wherever he visits he finds sadness and grief, but when he leaves, people’s lives are changed forever. Whether it’s the old man who lives alone or the grieving widow who looks for happiness in a bottle of wine, Bailey comes into their lives and shakes it up, making them better people just because he’s there. Each person believes they are the only ones that Bailey visits, but just how long will it be until he gets caught? And what will happen when everyone learns the truth? Based on the life adventures of a real dog, “The Secret Life of Yellow Dog” is a tale of love, acceptance, and understanding as people collide and clash, all over a single dog.