Southern Cross the Dog

After losing everything in the Great Flood of 1927, Robert Lee Chatham ventures throughout the Deep South, settling in brothels, swamps and labor camps. His life is changed when he meets a blues piano player who teaches him to keep his evil contained. Still, wherever his journey carries him, Robert refuses to abandon his belief that the devil is close behind, marking him for death since childhood.

The world Bill Cheng has created in this novel is incredibly well developed, which is quite a feat considering its size. Spanning over a decade and dozens of locations, readers are shown a gritty, beautifully visualized landscape. Though Robert's travels jump back and forth in time and place, the imagery makes location an easy mark.

I started show more smiling when I read the first few lines of the prologue to Southern Cross the Dog and was almost giggling over how good it was by its end. It is Cheng's way of raising a flag, letting readers know that he has entered the genre. I imagine you'll see few reviews of Southern Cross the Dog that don't at least mention William Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor, as Cheng has written a novel that almost seamlessly fits into the Southern Gothic canon. Yet, somehow, he's branded the work with a style that feels uniquely modern - much like poppy, vibrant colors on the cover of a rather haunting story.

Southern Cross the Dog is another case where I am awed by the ambition and vision of a debut novelist. I have a feeling you'll be hearing much more from Bill Cheng. show less

I'm not sure which book some of the other reviewers read who are making comments such as, I didn't get it and no plot. Bill Cheng's first novel reads more like a masterpiece that should be assigned to college lit students. Southern Cross the Dog (which for some reason confused a lot of people)refers to Moorehead Mississippi, where the Southern railroad crosses the Yazoo line railroad line that the locals called the "Yellow Dog." It is the heart of the delta, the embodiment of the Blues. Cheng's prose is also the embodiment of the Blues, taking you inside the lives of the people who lived the lives that are the stuff of great tragedies but were seldom chronicled. Let's get this Asian American from Brooklyn writing about Black and Cajun show more lives during the 20's stuff out of the way. No one who writes in settings other than their own has lived the experience. It is the thing that makes this book remarkable in that the author disappears and the characters and their lives are so believable that they become real egos in your mind. Read this book if you love Southern fiction, the Blues, reading, great writing and the incredible promise of a new writer. show less

Bill Cheng has written a really good book about disposed people in Mississippi and how they were affected by the 1927 flood. And as most know by now, he did it without ever having set foot in the state.

The smells, the sounds, the lives that were lived, all ring true. And that’s the beauty of fiction; whatever happened during that time, Cheng has made it his own.

Cheng thanks “all the late great bluesmen” in his acknowledgments and it’s a fine thing to see how a genre of music was able to inspire such a book.

I have no idea how this book has gotten the rave reviews that it has. The story doesn't ever seem to go anywhere. At no time did I care about any of the main characters in the book, and the book just dragged on and on. The author can write , he writes very poetic and lyrical, but it all seemed like it was an exercise assigned in a creative writing class. The author is an Asian American born and raised in Queens New York, why he felt compelled to write a book about African Americans in the south during the 1920's through 1941, I have no idea.

An epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past.

With clouds looming ominously on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will be interrupted by a merciless storm - bringing with it the Great Flood of 1927 - but not before Robert Chatham shares his first kiss with the beautiful young Dora. The flood destroys their homes, disperses their families, and wrecks their innocence. But for Robert, a boy whose family has already survived unspeakable pain, that single kiss will sustain him for years to come.

Losing virtually everything in the storm's aftermath, Robert embarks on a journey through the Mississippi hinterland - from a show more desperate refugee camp to the fiery brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the state's fearsome swamp, meeting piano-playing hustlers, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fierce and wild fur trappers along the way. But trouble follows close on his heels, fueling Robert's conviction that he's marked by the devil and nearly destroying his will to survive. And just when he seems to shake off his demons, he's forced to make an impossible choice that will test him as never before. show less

I received this book for a review and it's probably not one I would normally choose.

However I did enjoy it although I found the jumping from one time period to another and different character perspectives confusing at times.

It tells the story of Robert who as a child is caught up in the Mississippi flood of 1927 and how his life develops from then and the situations he gets into. Knowing nothing about either the time or the area I found the narrative very moving and it felt realistic to me anyway. As a black man his life was made even more difficult by the attitudes of the time and this comes across well.

The sex scenes howver were unnecessarily excessive and added noting to the story.

I like Southern noir and most books that take place in the south or when the author is from the south, that being said I have no idea how this book has gotten the rave reviews that it has. The story doesn't ever seem to go anywhere. At no time did I care about any of the main characters in the book, and the book just dragged on and on. The author can write , he writes very poetic and lyrical, but it all seemed like it was an exercise assigned in a creative writing class. The author is an Asian American born and raised in Queens New York, why he felt compelled to write a book about African Americans in the south during the 1920's through 1941, I have no idea.