Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 29, 1994 TAG: 9405290136
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo book page editor
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's unfair to label "Nop's Hope" as a sequel to "Nop's Trials" though, technically, that's exactly what it is.
The novel follows some of the same characters, both human and canine, in similar activities and locations, but the books have altogether different purposes and they're told in radically different prose styles. "Nop's Trials" is a picaresque adventure, the story of a dog who's stolen from his master, and the many "trials" they must undergo before they're reunited.
"Nop's Hope" is more a story of despair and redemption.
The main characters are Penny Burkholder, daughter of Lewis and Beverly Burkholder, and Hope, son of Nop. Hope is a young Border Collie. As the novel begins, Penny has decided to enter Hope on the Sheepdog Circuit. That means they'll travel from show to show across the country, hoping to win enough of the meager prize money to cover expenses and get them to the next contest.
It's not an activity anyone engages in for fame and fortune. Working with the sheep is hard on a young dog and the people who compete have a variety of reasons. Penny is trying to forget or to overcome a deep personal loss. For the dogs, it's simpler. As McCaig puts it, Border Collies' ability to work with sheep is an irresistible force, a genetic instinct with almost religious implications: "Her weariness slipped from her shoulders as Penny allowed herself to be drawn into the dog's hard Calvinist heritage where, so long as the work made sense, life made sense, and outside the work, everything was death and sorrow and swirling blackness."
The novel isn't as wide in scope as the first, or as long. Though there is considerable action and a full cast of characters, McCaig has cut scenes down the their barest essentials, eliminating descriptions, non-essential dialogue and connective tissue. His prose is still effective - "The Bighorn Mountains bulked up behind the field like a shy but determined wall." - and the plot moves with the efficiency of a film script. The brief scenes told from dogs' points of view are particularly good, just as they were in the first novel.
The stylistic differences don't effect the central ideas that McCaig is exploring in both novels, and in his recent non-fiction, "Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men." Those ideas concern the natures of dogs and men, how dogs are unable to break their trust and how men are incapable of sustaining it.
It's difficult to handle such complex concepts in popular fiction. One key scene near the conclusion, in which those trusts are tested, is hard to read. For those unfamiliar with the ways of working dogs and the competition among their handlers, it may even be inexplicable.
In the end, though, McCaig comes back to the universal truths about dogs and people that have made his books so popular. He writes about them as well as anyone ever has, and "Nop's Hope" is no exception. It's a fine book, highly recommended.
\ Donald McCaig will sign copies of "Nop's Hope" next Saturday, June 11, from 12-2pm at the Ram's Head bookstore at Towers Mall.
by CNB