reviews >> Dog on a Cross

“Dog on a Cross”
By Aaron Gwyn
217 pages, Algonquin Books
$15.95 

With the title, you’re right to expect “Dog on a Cross” to have a religious theme. In this collection of intertwined short stories, the center of the web is the First Pentecostal Church in Perser, Oklahoma. The church revels in the old fashioned fire-and-brimstone evangelism. However, religion is more the backdrop, the stage actually, to the more universal theme of futility, of faith and doubt, and of sin as the characters bear their individual crosses.

Author Aaron Gwyn’s straightforward style belies his writing’s depth and craftsmanship. The words are so saturated with meaning that the characters quickly become three-dimensional. While it’s tempting to rush through the simple, flowing prose, it takes discipline to read it slowly to capture the subtle shading of plot and characterizations. Gwyn’s distinctive voice captures the imagination and challenges the soul.

The protagonists vary in their closeness to the church. The beliefs range from an agnostic newspaper editor in “Truck” to the fervent teenage boy fighting his sinful pubescent libido in “Against the Pricks”. While the teenager seeks relief in salvation, the cynical editor thinks, “No doubt these people are deluded, their worship little more than a drug.” He later understands that, “… I suppose it is an accomplishment, finding a cure you can live with, one that doesn’t gnaw away at your soul.”

Author Aaron Gwyn articulates the importance of sorrow and pain as an integral part of life. In “Courtship”, a gay man suffers from unrequited love then learns how empty he feels when his torment is taken away from him. He realizes that, “… suffering an existence of insult and desire was not the worst thing that could occur; that life without love, without even the false hope of love, had very little left to it.”

Each story is connected by the setting, and a few of them recount the same event from the perspectives of different characters. They are a quick read, but don’t mistake them for light entertainment. If you are a connoisseur of fine writing and want your literature to stimulate reflection and evoke emotion, then let Aaron Gwyn draw you into his world of anguish.