Book Review: The Dog of the North by Elizabeth Mckenzie

My Rating: 3.5 ⭐

Our protagonist, thirty-five-year-old Penny Rush, has a lot on her plate. Her marriage recently fell apart and she is currently unemployed and strapped for cash, but she doesn’t have the time to brood over all of this, given that she has to attend to an issue concerning her grandmother, Dr. Pincer, whose living situation has fallen under the radar of Adult Protective Services. Penny is on her way to her grandmother's house in Santa Barbara, to get it cleaned (Pincer hoards more than rats and jars of weird specimens on her property and won’t make it easy for Penny), with help of her grandmother’s accountant, Burt Lampey with whom she strikes up an easy friendship. But things do not go as planned and what follows is a sequence of (mis)adventures that has Penny jumping from one crisis to another. We follow her as she deals with the situation with her grandmother, finds herself responsible for Burt’s adorable Pomeranian, Kweecoats (a mispronounced version of “Quixote''), embarks on a road trip in Burt’s green van named “Dog of the North” with a donkey-shaped piñata and a weird weapon-like instrument, the “scintillator”, she had to confiscate from her grandmother, travels to Australia with her grandfather Arlo whose second wife would rather have him in a senior care facility than at home, navigates her complicated relationship with her biological father and fights her attraction to Dale, Burt’s attractive younger brother who might be married. At the center of Penny’s troubles is her own family trauma - the disappearance of her mother and stepfather while on a trip in the Australian Outback five years ago. They had emigrated to Australia years ago and Penny’s sister, Margaret is also settled in Australia with her family. Penny has to come to terms with the fact that they are truly gone.

The Dog of the North by Elizabeth Mckenzie is an engaging story full of heart and humor. There is a lot to unpack in this novel. The author touches upon themes of elder care, family trauma, friendship, loss and healing in this quirky and thoroughly entertaining read. However, I would have liked the road trip segment to have been longer because that was what I was expecting. Despite the occasional farfetchedness, this story is one that held my attention. Penny suffers from low self-worth and on occasion, her choices are foolhardy and her decisions are questionable – but her flaws make her real and ultimately she is a character you can sympathize with and root for. As the narrative progresses, we see that the borderline ridiculous situations and people Penny encounter prompts her to pause and reflect on her own life amid all the madness happening all around her. At the heart of this novel is Penny’s journey - emotional and cathartic- that will help Penny reevaluate her own life and priorities. I liked that the author ends the story on a hopeful note instead of making it too neat and thereby, unconvincing. I will say, however, that to fully enjoy this novel, would require the reader to not overthink it and to just go with the flow.

This is my first Elizabeth McKenzie novel and I can’t wait to read more of her work. I paired my reading with the audio narration by Katherine Littrell which enhanced my experience.