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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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THE POWER OF THE DOG

Thomas Savage

First published in 1967, this is a western novel about two brothers and the competition between them when one marries. It includes an afterword by Annie Proulx.
Set in 1920s Montana, the novel introduces the Burbank brothers, whose lives are permanently altered when one falls in love with a widow and brings the woman and her son to live on their isolated ranch.

Phil and George are brothers, more than partners, joint owners of the biggest ranch in their Montana valley. Phil is the bright one, George the plodder. Phil is tall and angular; George is stocky and silent. Phil is a brilliant chess player, a voracious reader, an eloquent storyteller; George learns slowly, and devotes himself to the business. Phil is a vicious sadist, with a seething contempt for weakness to match his thirst for dominance; George has a gentle, loving soul. They sleep in the room they shared as boys, and so it has been for forty years.

When George unexpectedly marries a young widow and brings her to live at the ranch, Phil begins a relentless campaign to destroy his brother's new wife. But he reckons without an unlikely protector.

From its visceral first paragraph to its devastating twist of an ending, The Power of the Dog will hold you in its grip.

Thomas Savage was born on 25 April 1915 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to a large sheep-ranching family. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and on his mother's remarriage, Savage moved with her to Montana. He studied at the University of Montana and worked as a ranch hand for several years, but when an article he wrote on horse-breaking was published in Coronet magazine in 1937, Savage enrolled at Colby College in Maine to study English. He went on to have a variety of jobs, including welder, insurance man and plumber as well as teaching English at Brandeis and Vassar. His first novel, The Pass, was published in 1944 and he went on to write twelve more, including The Power of the Dog. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1980. Thomas Savage died in Virginia on 25 July 2003, aged eighty-eight.
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Book

Published 2001-06-01 by Little, Brown/Back Bay Books

Book

Published 2001-06-01 by Little, Brown/Back Bay Books

Comments

..offers so many pleasures...Put simply, The Power of the Dog is a masterpiece...

Kirsten Dunst is now replacing Elisabeth Moss to star in THE POWER OF THE DOG (Elisabeth Moss has a scheduling conflict). Paul Dano will be starring as her husband. Filming is planned to start in early 2020 with Netflix to release in 2021. Read more...

Jane Campion's film for Netflix (release 2021) is set to star Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Paul Dano in the lead roles.

Jane Campion's Netflix adaptation of THE POWER OF THE DOG by Thomas Savage, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, is now out in select theaters and will be available on Netflix in early December. Along with various prizes including a Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, the movie is getting rave reviews EVERYWHERE including from the New York Times, Guardian, LA Times, New Yorker, etc. (see trailer here).

Thomas Savage is a writer of real consequence...a masterful novelist..

A fine novel...studded with fleeting insights, and reverberating for some time after it is laid down.

...a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art--the ability to illuminate and move...

Gripping and tense...a work of literary art...

UK: Random House/Vintage ; China: Thinkingdom ; France: Belfond ; Greece: Agyra ; Israel: Kinneret ; Italy: Neri Pozza ; Korea: Minumsa ; Netherlands: De Geus ; Poland: Proszynski ; Portugal: ASA ; Russia: AST ; Romania: Corint ; Serbia: Vulkan ; Spain/LA: Alianza

With its echoes of East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain, this satisfyingly complex story deserves another shot at rounding up public admiration. Read more...

The finest single book I know about the modern West.