BOOK INFORMATION
Title: Diamond Dogs
Author: Alan Watt
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
Price: $23.95
Pages: 256
By Brette Fishman
Daily Bruin Contributor
In Alan Watts novel, “Diamond Dogs,” readers only
need to read less than 30 pages to find out what the title means.
“Diamond Dogs” does not use subtle leitmotif; the
themes of the novel are strung together in an obvious and
heavy-handed fashion.
According to Neil, the speaker of the novel, a “Diamond
Dog” is a man who is only free when he listens to the music
of Neil Diamond. A “Diamond Dog” gets a faraway look in
his eye like the look of a stray dog when he listens to
Diamond’s music.
Neil was named after Neil Diamond and his father is a
“Diamond Dog.”
“Diamond Dogs” is a good attempt at piecing together
a novel, almost following a formula, but it falls short of anything
more than a superficial look into the psyche of a very disturbed
teenage boy confronted by his own legal transgression and family
issues.
The novel is written from the perspective of Neil Garvin, the
very promising and popular star high school quarterback from a
small town outside of Las Vegas. His mother abandoned him when he
was 3 years old and he lives with his father, the local
sheriff.
Sheriff Chester Garvin presents a caring façade to the
outside world but is conversely an alcoholic and is abusive to his
son and girlfriend in the privacy of his own home. Chester, like
many of the other fathers in the town, lives out his hopes and
dreams through his son on the football field.
Neil’s bright future is threatened when he accidentally
commits a terrible crime and his father covers it up for him
without his consent. The novel is Neil’s memory of his
reaction to the incident and the events in the days that followed
it. The novel also presents other memories that Neil recalls in a
very random and disorganized manner. However, this attempted
stream-of-consciousness only confuses the reader, and does not
adequately mimic the thought process of a teenager.
Neil’s unrelated recollections jump around from incidents
such as his father’s abuse to driving down the desolate road
to his house.
The story could be set in any time period, the music is the only
element that gives any indication of when the novel takes place.
Neil escapes from his father by listening to Nirvana, placing the
novel in the early 1990’s.
“I put on my headphones and shoved in Nirvana’s
Incesticide CD,” Neil says in the book. “I was lying on
my bed listening to “˜Been a Son’ trying to picture my
mother’s face and see the sadness, see the loss in her eyes
and fix it to the only memory that I had of her, that moment in the
laundry room ““ but I couldn’t. Her face was a
blur.”
Music plays a pivotal role in the lives of both Neil and his
father and Watt describes in detail the soundtrack to the events.
The songs could almost be read as metaphors for how Neil and his
father feel about the situations they find themselves in, just as
people often do in real life.
The lyrics from the songs mentioned in the novel can give the
reader a better idea of the mood Watt is trying to establish. Many
of the songs may not be familiar to the general public, but Watt
assumes that they are. Through Neil’s voice, Watt tries to
capture what it is like to be a typical American teenager in high
school. Neil describes how, as an athlete, he receives special
treatment, and how students make fun of teachers, such as
Neil’s algebra teacher, Mr. Russell.
“We’d throw chalk at him when he wasn’t
looking and yell in class while he was writing on the board,”
Neil recalls. “And when he turned around we’d pretend
to be studying. We’d just be yelling nonsense. And we’d
really yell, I mean we would scream “¦ We did it to torment
him.”
Neil never justifies tormenting his teachers and peers as a need
for feeling more secure about himself. Instead, he comes to the
conclusion that he is just a jerk. Society allows him to be a jerk
because he is a good athlete and they need him to win the big
football game.
The novel’s literary techniques feel very staged and
intentional. When the FBI is brought in to investigate the crime
the novel’s lack of subtlety is apparent in the choice of the
agent’s name, Clive Burden. The name seems to be blatantly
symbolic, indicating that Agent Burden is just another
“burden” that Neil must face in his struggle to be free
from his problems.
The stilted writing style can be partially attributed to the
fact that this is Watt’s first novel. The repetition of the
central themes in “Diamond Dogs,” including music and
the diamond dogs themselves, are overdone by the end of the novel.
The reader does not really feel that he has gotten into
Neil’s head as Watt would like, but has rather been witness
to a series of events in Neil’s life at a very superficial
and forced level.