Magnetic Dogs
By Bruce Meyer
Magnetic Dogs is a collection of short stories that examines how displaced individuals – those who have been snatched out of their time and place – struggle to adapt and reinvent themselves in an entirely new context or re-establish themselves in their former situations. ... Read more
Overview
Magnetic Dogs is a collection of short stories that examines how displaced individuals – those who have been snatched out of their time and place – struggle to adapt and reinvent themselves in an entirely new context or re-establish themselves in their former situations. In stories that are factual fiction, Meyer examines the composition of Gabriel Fauré’s haunting “Cantique de Jean Racine,” the 1960s ‘scoop’ of Indigenous children from Manitoulin Island, the missing diaries of Lewis Carroll that save that author from the charges of child molestation that ruined his career as an academic, the true story of a shade of red and Seventh Century Chinese exploration of the North Atlantic, and the origins and ramifications of a haunting Aztec form of music, borrowed by J. S. Bach, the ‘chaconne. ’ In these stories Meyer constantly questions the ways our perceptions of the past might have been different had small events transpired to make them so.
Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer is the author of more than forty-five books of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, literary journalism, and textbooks. His broadcasts such as The Great Books and Great Poetry: Poetry is Life and Vice-Versa with Michael Enright are the CBC's bestselling spoken-word audio cds. His most recent books include the anthology, We Wasn't Pals: Canadian Poetry and Prose of the First World War (co-edited with Barry Callaghan with an afterword by Margaret Atwood), the poetry books The Obsession Book of Timbuktu, Testing the Elements, and The Seasons, and the short story collection A Chronicle of Magpies. He is professor of English at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, and visiting professor of literature at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. He was the inaugural poet laureate of the City of Barrie from 2010 to 2014. He lives in Barrie with his wife and daughter.