‘Blood-Drenched Beard’: Dog saves narrator and the book

It's easy to draw comparisons between Brazilian author Daniel Galera's recently translated novel 'Blood-Drenched Beard” and Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises”: Both are comfortably masculine works, both have a keen sense of place and both dedicate very little time to the development of plot.

That isn't to say 'Blood-Drenched Beard” doesn't have a plot: just before the narrator's father dies, he tells him the story of his grandfather's brutal murder. No one ever saw his body, leading to rumors that he still is alive.

After his father's death, the narrator takes off in search of answers with his father's 15-year-old dog, Beta, as his companion.

So while there is a plot, Galera isn't concerned with moving it forward. Instead he lets his novel wander as free as the narrator's dog along the seashore. Long passages are spent detailing the narrator's turn as a swimming coach, his romantic pursuits, his befriending a group of raucous locals who play poker while wearing adult diapers (so as not to disrupt the game). These turns are amusing and strangely beautiful, and just when you think the narrator has forgotten his grandfather all together, suddenly he is back asking questions, hiking through the treacherous landscape off in pursuit.

These constant deviations make for an uneven read. There also is the matter of the narrator: an unnamed man who suffers from a rare neurological condition that makes it impossible for him to recognize faces. This condition is nothing more than a gimmick to keep the narrator at an even greater emotional distance from the reader.

But what saves the book is what saves the narrator as well: his dog, Beta. This triumphant, faithful, resilient old dog and the narrator's relationship with her is a strong, constant thread throughout the novel, tying all the strange deviations together, making her man's - and reader's - best friend.