When Mr Dog Bites tells the story of Dylan Mint, a sixteen year old Scottish boy. He goes to school, plays for the football team, hangs out with his best friend Amir, and fancies the pants off of his classmate Michelle Malloy. Sounds pretty normal, right? Wrong. Dylan Mint also has Tourette’s. And he’s just found out he’s dying.
Surprisingly, there isn’t quite as much explicit language as I’d expect Conaghan to include when depicting a protagonist with Tourette’s, but it works. By holding back on the bad language, Dylan’s sudden outbursts are made all the more delicious. And yes, there are some very naughty words.
But Conaghan also treats his character with great sensitivity, tapping perfectly into the mindset of an angst-ridden teenager who is constantly trying to play it cool. Whilst amusing, Dylan’s letters to his father, who is away at war, are also very touching.
This is a very funny book. Conaghan weaves an enchanting tale that hooked me from the very beginning. Expect laughs every couple of pages. But whilst we’re smirking at the jokes, Conaghan also manages to slip a much more serious issue into the picture – Dylan’s disgust at the racist attitudes of others towards his best friend Amir. This brings a certain rawness that lies beneath the surface of the comedy, and highlights the problems that still exist in our society today. There is something shocking, and also very haunting, about seeing those words in print. It seems that Conaghan is making a very serious point about the power of language with When Mr Dog Bites; it has the power to relieve, as it does for Dylan and Amir’s ticks, but equally, language can hurt.
In spite of his mishaps and the rather horrid curse words that tumble out of his mouth every time he gets stressed, Dylan is a very relatable protagonist, and there is something incredibly endearing about his character. Perhaps it’s the fact that we know his time on planet earth is very limited, and we only have a small amount of time left to truly savour and appreciate him. Dylan has already been compared to The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield, but I saw something more reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange in Dylan’s tendency to slip into cockney rhyming slang, treating it as part of his own special language. Dylan seems to have that same teenage sense of self-confidence, naïve innocence to the wider world around him, and desire to express his individuality that is so similar to Alex and his droogs.
In short, I really enjoyed reading this book. The story is told in a very personal, relaxed way and quickly lures us into Dylan’s mindset. It’s fresh. It’s modern. And somehow, it doesn’t feel the slightest bit pretentious. Conaghan is down with the kids, and he knows it.
Perhaps I’ll write my own ‘Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It’ list.
When Mr Dog Bites by Brian Conaghan (Bloomsbury) will be released on 16th January 2014.