Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis (2015)
The obvious way to begin any discussion of what makes André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs so splendid is to talk about its wild originality, the poker-faced big swing of its premise – what if two rival gods decided, on a boozy whim, to bestow the dubious “gift” of human intelligence onto a selection of stray canines? And perhaps you’d go on to describe your surprise and delight as a reader that such a premise, which one might reasonably expect would give way to a light, cartoonish fantasy of sorts, instead unfurls into one of the most affecting, heartbreaking and – that’s right – human narratives you’ve ever encountered. But as I was rereading the first few pages of Fifteen Dogs, what struck me first and foremost this time around was the unfussy perfection of the prose. Reading the first few lines of Alexis’s writing is like sliding downhill in winter – easy, irresistible. While the tale of Alexis’s four-legged protagonists may be an emotional wringer, the telling of it is never less than a joy.
Lynn Coady, 2011 finalist and 2013 winner, The Antagonist and Hellgoing
Asking me which is my favourite novel is a bit like asking me my favourite word. Okay, spelunking. Or maybe, crepuscular. What I find most compelling is the great variety of what is possible. The range of voices and approaches. However, if I had to choose the Giller that most surprises and delights me, the thrillingest of the Giller list, it’d be Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis. It’s a brilliant novel and, for me, stands out from the pack by demonstrating what’s possible in a novel. It is a witty, moving, inventive exploration of love, death, language, consciousness and storytelling. It asks profound and essential questions in an engaging and compelling way. It explores the possibility of modes of writing that aren’t bound by the conventions of the realistic novel, which after all, is just one way of writing. Alexis’s masterful tale engages with other types of storytelling: for example, magic realism, poetry and apologue (a kind of allegory). It is aware of its own constructed storyness, its creation by language, and yet is moving, beautiful and compelling. Two Greek gods drinking and wagering in an old Toronto tavern give the eponymous 15 dogs language and consciousness. What do we learn? Alexis’s dogs teach us the beauty and predicament of what it is to be human, the exquisite and precarious gift of consciousness and language. Also what it means to be a dog, to have a perspective other than the human. We learn that the fantastic exists and its stories can be touching, insightful, funny, intellectual, ingenious, charming and heartbreaking. This novel’s bite is as deep as its bark and so that’s why it’s the top dog Giller for me.
Gary Barwin, 2016 finalist, Yiddish for Pirates
Runaway by Alice Munro (2004)
I won’t pretend to have read all the books to have won the Giller Prize or made an exhaustive effort at comparing and contrasting the ones I have read. I chose Alice Munro’s Runaway because it’s a book I have on my bookshelf that I periodically return to as one does with a great work of art – because its beauty and mystery remain undiminished and one can admire it like a part of nature, a leaf or a cloud. Like a leaf or a cloud, the stories feel inherently true, each observation or shift in feeling or thought utterly convincing. The book contains eight relatively long stories, each with a one-word title: “Runaway,” “Chance,” “Silence,” “Passion,” etc. The titles themselves suggest something about Munro’s sensibility and style, which could be described as kind of luminous restraint. It’s reflective of the world most of her heroines inhabit or escape – small-town Canada with its Calvinist stoicism, hardscrabble nobility, narrowness, snobbishness and stifled urges.
Munro hardly needs me or anyone else to sing her praises, but the writing is of a piece with her heroines, smart but not showy, liable to surprise or arouse but never gratuitously. It’s also true that I’m partial to the book because I like the short-story form. It’s the rare novel that justifies its length, but there are several stories in Runaway – “Chance” and “Passion” perhaps my two favourites – that are as rich as any novel, and richer for not having any slack. Of the 26 books (in 25 years) that have won the Giller, only four have been story collections. (Two of them were by Munro.) All literary writing is a cultural underdog – which is largely why the Giller Prize was created – but the story collection is the underdog’s underdog. Which is why I’d argue that Runaway – for its sheer excellence and underdoggedness – best embodies the spirit of the prize.
David Bezmozgis, 2011 and 2014 finalist, The Free World and The Betrayers