Stonedogs

Southern Style

The youth from the old colonies head to London, a mecca for hedonism, dangerous encounters and self-discovery in this vibrant, shocking novel by the award-winning writer of Stonedogs. Craig Marriner’s second novel lifts the lid on the Big OE as his sprawling cast of young Southerners tackle London head on. There’s Lisa from Cape Town, class warrior and part-time drug dealer; Ryan the Aussie, with little to show for two years of overstaying but hangovers and hang-ups; and Alex from Auckland, fresh off the plane, a management graduate with the world at his feet, if he can grow up fast enough. And there’s London itself, a stage that sets no limits on hedonism and personal discovery. The ancient city has never seemed so promising. Or so dangerous. Cockney villains tussle with blacks, establishment toffs tug invisible strings, but newcomers from the East could be the jokers in the pack as old institutions are threatened by the forces of a globalised world. In the midst of it all, the neo-explorers are set to learn just how far from home they really are, how much London has to give, and the price it can demand in return. In this brilliant novel, Marriner further develops the distinctive brand of fiction he introduced in the jaw-dropping Stonedogs. Southern Style rubs philosophy and polemic up against a story that swings from the hilarious to the shocking and every shade in between.

Stonedogs

In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

Daniel Danis's homage to Aeschylus, the "father of tragedy," is set on an imaginary island in the St. Lawrence River. The eccentric islanders are about to join in the outdoor "Rages" staged by the trickster Coyote--wild Bacchanalia where the participants, under the influence of his potions, lose all vestiges of their civility and abandon themselves to the elemental forces of life and death. Under the ever-present eyes of a chorus of dogs, the play opens with Djoukie, holding a series of number eights, symbols of eternity, changing the price at her mother's Gaz-O-Tee-Pee. Determined to escape this "real junkpile for a bunch of mental cases," Djouke wants only to discover the mystery of her paternity before she leaves. But she is unprepared for what she is about to discover: that the day brings on the night, and that all humans are trapped at the heart of this eternal quarrel. Le Langue-à-Langue des chiens de roche was the winner of the 2002 Governor General's Award for French Drama.