Dog Days (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Judy Budnitz
- First Published: 1998
- Type of Plot: Dystopian, didactic
- Time of Work: The twenty-first century
- Setting: A small town in the United States
- Principal Characters: Lisa, Pat, Eliott, Her mother, Howard, Marjorie, Prince
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Dogs, Communication, Future, Twenty-first century, Alienation, Poverty or poor people, Small-town life, Disasters, End of the world, Isolation, Hunger
- Locales: United States
The Story
“Dog Days” uses a third-person narrative from the perspective of Lisa, a young woman, to relate the story of a family caught up in an undefined national crisis. Over a single year, the family's standard of living declines drastically; they lack electricity, experience drastic food shortages, and have their neighbors disappear mysteriously. Soon they appear to be the only people remaining in town.
The unifying thread in this chaotic situation is a creature, presumably a human dressed as a dog, that ingratiates himself with members of the family, becoming...
[The entire page is 1451 words long]
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