Paul Yoon (Run Me to Earth) follows the lead of authors such as Paul Auster and André Alexis by using a dog as his narrator in the novel Etna. It's a smart choice, given that themes of loyalty, perceptiveness, and home are integral to this excellent work on the suffering brought about by the ravages of war.
In an unknown country, a 12-month-old mixed-breed shepherd lives on a farm with other animals, where he often wakes up "to a den of pale noses surrounding me" and the sight of his mother, "the tall triangles of her ears pocketing the smell of the coast." His is a happy life, until a woman in uniform arrives and says she is "hoping to find dogs to join up with and assist the armies arriving from North America and Europe." Her name is Soojin, a doctor the Americans hired because she's good with dogs. Is she ever: she can hear dogs' thoughts and communicate with them. She names the protagonist Etna, after the volcano in Sicily, and tells him he's going to be a critical part of the war effort. "You're going to work hard," she says, "and save a lot of lives."
This exciting yet melancholy story begins with Etna's four years as a combat dog, in which he learns not only how to identify telltale smells but also how to attack a thigh artery or go for an enemy's throat. But Yoon has something deeper in mind than a simple wartime adventure. After hostilities end, Etna departs from camp in the hope of returning to the farm, which may or may not still exist. He encounters a troop of missionaries, meets a man named Hong who provides medicine to ravaged communities, befriends a fellow dog named Semeru, and gets involved in a mission to travel to a dangerous mountain region and deliver badly needed supplies.
A propulsive narrative of unrelenting sadness may sound oxymoronic, but that's the conjurer's trick Yoon pulls off. The ability to return home after tragic events sometimes requires a redefinition of home, as Etna and his compatriots discover in this elegant work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer
Shelf Talker: Paul Yoon's Etna is a quietly thrilling novel told from the point of view of a combat dog who is taken from his farm to serve in a war and then attempts to return home once the conflict ends.