In a restless and kaleidoscopic collage of life writing, art criticism, and psychoanalytic and affect theory, Dog Days is LaBarge’s reckoning with (or attempt to expel) this It, the 'incandescent voltage' of trauma ... Offers little in the way of edification or tidy resolution ... A more conventional tale of violence or suffering or addiction might seduce its reader with the utopian promise of repair ... A peculiar, energizing archaeology of violence throughout and is at its most revolutionary when digging into the relational pleasures and griefs of confessional writing.
Embracing disorientation as a formal strategy, Dog Days locates a sympathy between traumatic experience and the practice of writing itself ... At times painfully attuned to this conundrum: that the good story lies behind all stories and may at any moment rear its head. Even as the book draws to a close, there is a sense that it is still undecided on how the good story should be told, if at all ... Stays with the difficulty, veering between ebullience, bewilderment and despair, dogged by its questions about how to make a life in the aftermath, and how to weather being shaped by forces beyond one’s control.
In Dog Days, LaBarge proves herself seriously adept at interpreting and synthesising these inputs in intricate and fascinating ways ... Relentlessly questions its own methods, and ultimately seeks to incorporate its flaws. This doesn’t prevent them from being flaws ... Dog Days’ stop-start rhythms aren’t evidence of a lack of skill, as numerous virtuosic passages prove. The book’s inability to find the best shape for itself comes from LaBarge’s admirable desire to write from inside her experience, and to give the most accurate account of it she can.
This book has high, philosophical ambitions, and builds an inquiry into narrative itself ... An expansive, constellatory reading experience ... Dog Days is more than a book of answers, and thank God; it is a book of problems.
A vivid, incandescent miasma ... Dog Days undoubtedly orbits around trauma, though it seems to bristle self-consciously against this fact. Throughout the book, LaBarge rails against testimonies that unwittingly or opportunistically add to ‘the world of Trauma Stories' ... LaBarge downplays her ability to fathom and communicate her experience by deferring to the voices of other writers, thinkers and researchers, allowing her book to unravel – to be ‘protean, malformed – open to irresolution’ – lest her readers perceive her as either a teacher or unreliable witness, instead opting for the ambiguity of remaining the perpetual student of trauma.
A singular mix of memoir and criticism ... Poignant textual interpretations combine with rigorous analyses of psychology and philosophy to reveal the unrelenting pull of the past. It’s an evocative quest to find meaning in the inexplicable.
