It’s a painful existence, but Hig finds beauty in his world, marveling at nature’s delicate and unwavering persistence in hopeless times, like moss swinging as “sad pennants” from the trees and the “pumpkin orange” bark of aged fir. (The hero, calloused and nearly broken by the cloud of violence that blankets every day, carves flesh from the dead to feed Jasper.) The duo’s muscle, Bangley arrived in Erie with “weapons of every murderous phylum” and “doesn’t sound unhappy” after unflinchingly shooting a very young intruder who was pursuing Hig. Hig, who “doesn’t like to kill a bug,” is locked in an unhappy marriage of convenience with Bangley. His amply weaponed partner, a cantankerous yet necessary soldier named Bangley, is battle hardened and happy to kill when scavengers stalk their well-supplied compound. Those daily flights patrol the eight miles of open grassland between his airfield homebase in Erie and the wooded foothills. They bear primitive weapons and drape themselves in horrible trophies on one occasion Hig pulls the trigger without remorse. Mad Max-esque bad guys roam the land, pillaging and marauding. Heller’s rolling tale swerves suddenly between Hig’s poetic ponderings and the hard-edged life in the wildest of wilds. And while the beetles, drought and wildfires have ravaged the mountains just as the flu and a blood disease wiped out the people, it’s still the Rockies.īut the romanticism of the idyllic life in the hills quickly fades. It’s a chimera many have pondered as they idle on I-70, mired in the horde of toy-toting travelers. He sleeps under the stars, with Jasper dreaming in whimpers at his side. He scours abandoned McMansions and box stores for supplies, celebrating simple scores like a case of soda or olive oil. He flies twice daily, relishing the vistas and an unhurried life with his four-legged brother Jasper riding shotgun.

He fishes for carp in mountain streams where all the trout have died. Heller’s likable protagonist Hig has a lifetime supply of gas, a 1956 Cessna, a loyal hound and plenty of room to roam.

Life in Peter Heller’s end-of-times Colorado seems swell, at least in the early parts of the Denver author’s first novel, “The Dog Stars.”

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (Knopf Doubleday) Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu

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