Miscellaneous & Reviews.
“Crafty canines and their exploits with human companions make for fun reading”
Citizen-Times, Books, Oct 28, 2001
By Rob Neufeld
Are you tired of the same old ghost stories – stair-treading malcontents looking for missing body
parts; unrequited lovers and doomed hitchhikers; distracted loners playing pranks in old houses? Well,
you’ve been barking up the wrong tree, or, rather, you haven’t been paying attention to your dog who’s
been barking up the right tree.
I’ve read plenty of books of ghost lore in which the tales are so third-hand they fall flat like
paper skeletons – and I’m here to report that Randy Russell’s and Janet Barnett’s new collection,
“Ghost Dogs of the South” (John F. Blair) is one of the most satisfying collections of ghost stories
I’ve ever encountered. “You don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy this book, but you should
believe in dogs,” writes Genelle Morain of the University of Georgia in the book’s forward.
The loyalty, unconditional love and intelligence of dogs create bonds with humans that often beg
to transcend death. Stories of psychic dogs abound. Many watchful dog lovers attest that dogs can
see ghosts. Ghost dog stories are not an oddity, they’re an ideal.
For instance, there’s the story in the Asheville’s couple’s book of the “watch dog,” Mike, who
beckoned his human companion, Corbin, from coal mine no. 7 in Harlan, Ky., every workday at
precisely 12:14 p.m. Corbin had placed a ticking time piece around Mike’s neck as a talisman.
One day, Mike came to call early, eliciting jeers from Corbin’s co-workers, but not from Corbin,
who recalled how the stray dog had saved him in France during World War II by anticipating the
arrival of an exploding shell.
Sure enough, Mike’s ferocious insistence that the miners vacate no. 7 is followed a couple of
minutes later by a cave-in. Years later, miners continue to maintain Mike’s doghouse at the mine,
and they say they hear the dog’s watch travel to wherever an accident is about to happen.
What makes “Ghost Dogs” stand out, aside from how the supernatural is grounded in real-life
superstition (talismans, memorials, etc.), is the style. Russell and Barnett enjoy telling their
tales and alter their style – as would a good storyteller – to fit the piece.
The story “Watch Dog” spends a couple paragraphs evoking the abundance of spooky sounds heard
within a mine. “A Dog’s Wish,” which take place in Tryon and is one of my very favorites, employs
humor. A couple walking their retriever encounter the ghost of a headless British colonel, hanged
at the end of the Revolutionary War. “It isn’t easy being a headless ghost,” the authors note.
“It takes years and years to learn to talk with your neck.”
“A Dog’s Wish” is also the story in which you’ll get the biggest surprise ending. It involves
one-updogship.
“Happiness for a dog, it has been said, is the other side of a door,” begins the story “The Open Door,”
about a dog who refuses to be separated from its human -- a casualty of the War between the States –
even after the soldier’s coffin is placed in an impregnable crypt in Edisto, S.C. (You can visit
the site in the Presbyterian Church cemetery there.) The story’s sly opening gives a taste of the
authors’ predilection for representing the dog point of view.
When “Ghost Dogs” enters North Carolina (in the story, “Devil Dogs,” set in Cedar Cliff above the
Tuckasegee River), a mountain style of story telling takes over. A folk lore professor goes to
collect tale from an old woman named Annie. Before she gets to the main story – about how a dog
from hell is waiting too punish her for murdering a Yankee who had forced himself on community
women – she keeps the scholar running with all kinds of diversions.
Annie tells the man why dogs and cats fight (it involves the retrieval of a magic chunk of
moonlight that keeps moonshine jugs full). She also engages in this kind of teasing.
“You ever see a writer that doesn’t have both his ears?” Annie asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” her visitor replied.
Annie nodded solemnly.
“What some people say around her is that every time a writer tells the truth, one of his ears
falls off.”
Miscellaneous & Reviews.
“Crafty canines and their exploits with human companions make for fun reading”
Citizen-Times, Books, Oct 28, 2001
By Rob Neufeld
Are you tired of the same old ghost stories – stair-treading malcontents looking for missing body parts; unrequited lovers and doomed hitchhikers; distracted loners playing pranks in old houses? Well, you’ve been barking up the wrong tree, or, rather, you haven’t been paying attention to your dog who’s been barking up the right tree.
I’ve read plenty of books of ghost lore in which the tales are so third-hand they fall flat like paper skeletons – and I’m here to report that Randy Russell’s and Janet Barnett’s new collection, “Ghost Dogs of the South” (John F. Blair) is one of the most satisfying collections of ghost stories I’ve ever encountered. “You don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy this book, but you should believe in dogs,” writes Genelle Morain of the University of Georgia in the book’s forward.
The loyalty, unconditional love and intelligence of dogs create bonds with humans that often beg to transcend death. Stories of psychic dogs abound. Many watchful dog lovers attest that dogs can see ghosts. Ghost dog stories are not an oddity, they’re an ideal.
For instance, there’s the story in the Asheville’s couple’s book of the “watch dog,” Mike, who beckoned his human companion, Corbin, from coal mine no. 7 in Harlan, Ky., every workday at precisely 12:14 p.m. Corbin had placed a ticking time piece around Mike’s neck as a talisman. One day, Mike came to call early, eliciting jeers from Corbin’s co-workers, but not from Corbin, who recalled how the stray dog had saved him in France during World War II by anticipating the arrival of an exploding shell.
Sure enough, Mike’s ferocious insistence that the miners vacate no. 7 is followed a couple of minutes later by a cave-in. Years later, miners continue to maintain Mike’s doghouse at the mine, and they say they hear the dog’s watch travel to wherever an accident is about to happen.
What makes “Ghost Dogs” stand out, aside from how the supernatural is grounded in real-life superstition (talismans, memorials, etc.), is the style. Russell and Barnett enjoy telling their tales and alter their style – as would a good storyteller – to fit the piece.
The story “Watch Dog” spends a couple paragraphs evoking the abundance of spooky sounds heard within a mine. “A Dog’s Wish,” which take place in Tryon and is one of my very favorites, employs humor. A couple walking their retriever encounter the ghost of a headless British colonel, hanged at the end of the Revolutionary War. “It isn’t easy being a headless ghost,” the authors note. “It takes years and years to learn to talk with your neck.”
“A Dog’s Wish” is also the story in which you’ll get the biggest surprise ending. It involves one-updogship.
“Happiness for a dog, it has been said, is the other side of a door,” begins the story “The Open Door,” about a dog who refuses to be separated from its human -- a casualty of the War between the States – even after the soldier’s coffin is placed in an impregnable crypt in Edisto, S.C. (You can visit the site in the Presbyterian Church cemetery there.) The story’s sly opening gives a taste of the authors’ predilection for representing the dog point of view.
When “Ghost Dogs” enters North Carolina (in the story, “Devil Dogs,” set in Cedar Cliff above the Tuckasegee River), a mountain style of story telling takes over. A folk lore professor goes to collect tale from an old woman named Annie. Before she gets to the main story – about how a dog from hell is waiting too punish her for murdering a Yankee who had forced himself on community women – she keeps the scholar running with all kinds of diversions.
Annie tells the man why dogs and cats fight (it involves the retrieval of a magic chunk of moonlight that keeps moonshine jugs full). She also engages in this kind of teasing.
“You ever see a writer that doesn’t have both his ears?” Annie asked.“No, I don’t think so,” her visitor replied.
Annie nodded solemnly.
“What some people say around her is that every time a writer tells the truth, one of his ears falls off.”