Here Come the Dogs: A Novel

By Omar Musa

In small-town suburban Australia, three young men from three different ethnic backgroundsone Samoan, one Macedonian, one not sureare ready to make their mark. Solomon is all charisma, authority, and charm, a failed basketball player down for the moment but surely not out. His half-brother, Jimmy, bounces along in his wake, underestimated, waiting for his chance to announce himself. Aleks, their childhood friend, loves his mates, his family, and his homeland and would do anything for them. The question is, does he know where to draw the line?

Solomon, Jimmy, and Aleks are way out on the fringe of Australia, looking for a way in. Hip hop, basketball, and graffiti give them a voice. Booze, women, and violence pass the time while they wait for their chance. Under the oppressive summer sun, their town has turned tinder-dry. All it’ll take is a spark.

As the surrounding hills roar with flames, the change storms in. But it’s not what they were waiting for. It never is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The New Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781620971192

Reviews for Here Come the Dogs

[mjlivi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fierce, angry book about the Western suburbs of Sydney, Here Come the Dogs is the story of three young men trying to find their way and stake out their identities in a society that's pretty ambivalent about them. Rooted in hip hop and clubbing, in sport, drugs and drinking, this is a brutal and intense look at life for second-generation Australians. The relentless masculinity of the book started to wear me down after a while, but Musa is a talented writer with plenty to say about communities largely ignored in Australian literary novels.