The Dog Stars

44 pages1-hour read

Fiction

Novel

Adult

Published in 2012

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Book 2, Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

Book 2, Chapter 4 Summary

As Hig makes his way toward the stone house, observing the natural beauty of “wild strawberry [and] penstemon,” as well as “[h]uge ponderosas, the smell of old wet stone and vanilla” (181). He begins to suspect that the pair is now ambushing him and seeks a hiding place in the brush. As darkness falls, he finally succumbs to his exhaustion and falls asleep. Suddenly, the old man appears from nowhere and holds Hig at gunpoint, taking his grenades, then binds him with rope and imprisons him in the yard of the stone house. An interrogation ensues, and Hig finally breaks down in tears, telling them that his dog just died and he has nothing left to lose. As he urges them to kill him, the woman tells her father to free Hig from his bonds.

Hig collects himself by the river and returns to reclaim his weapons, offering the grenades to them as a “housewarming” gift. After several tense, hostile moments, the old man and Cima, his daughter, prove themselves to be essentially kind and share their food with Hig, revealing more about who they are. Hig shares some of his own history in return.

That night, he has dreams about his wife and their old home. Cima, whose throat remains bruised due to complications from the flu, shares her story of losing her husband and describes her old life as an epidemiologist in New York City.

Hig stays with the pair for the better part of a week at least, and they eventually tell him that they need him; their life in the box canyon is threatened due to the effects of global warming and looming drought, complicating their ability to survive. The old man and Cima need Hig to fly the three of them somewhere else. Hig plans to fly with Cima to Grand Junction to find fuel and investigate the years-old radio signal. He can only take one person on that trip because the gas he has left cannot accommodate a crew of three. When he obtains new fuel, he will come back to pick up the old man (who is known as Pops), and the three will return to Erie together.

Pops is a hard-bitten man who shares Bangley’s survivalist attitude. He ascertains that Hig is a hunter and a fisherman merely by reading his body language, and his perspicacity amazes Hig, who becomes more impressed when Pops does not complain about the necessity of remaining behind during the upcoming trip to Grand Junction.

Book 2, Chapter 4 Analysis

In many ways, Cima and Pops’s quirks of personality contain distinct echoes of Hig’s own past, as well as his current life. For example, Pops’s no-nonsense approach to survival holds clear parallels to Bangley’s iron-willed surveillance and cold analysis of tactical situations, and in this new setting, Pops plays a very similar role in helping to plan new strategies for this new, makeshift group’s survival. Even as the three characters circle each other uneasily, father and daughter carefully gauge the extent of Hig’s trustworthiness, and it is only when he reveals his own deep emotional vulnerabilities that they take the monumental step of trusting him. His evident grief over the loss of his dog and his awkward, rusty social skills both mark him as a man who has come to the desperate edge of his own endurance, and these factors help to convince them that he has no sinister motive in invading their territory. Likewise, Hig’s contemplations of Cima present him with an opportunity to revisit the details of his own past marriage, and the amorous undertones of his private regard foreshadow the possibility that the two may one day develop a deeper connection.

Yet even as the three slowly learn to trust one another and begin to make tentative plans for leaving the canyon and finding the means to return to Erie, Hig’s ability to plan and his willingness to emulate Bangley’s hard caution are still tempered by his inherently gentle nature, and in the midst of his own insecurities, he often succumbs to The Haunting Effect of Dreams and Memories, reminiscing about the life and love that he has so far lost. Heller accelerates this effect by employing a deliberately muddled writing style that eschews quotation marks and thereby blurs the boundaries between Hig’s private thoughts and his verbal dialogue with Cima and Pops. At one point, his meandering contemplations conclude with him spontaneously speaking his thoughts aloud, then apologizing to the confused Pops and admitting that he does not always realize that he has begun talking to himself. The overall effect is of a man who is so deeply entrenched in his own thoughts that he finds it difficult to remain present in the moment: a mark of trauma that has yet to be fully processed. These attributes find common ground with Pops and Cima’s own losses, creating a foundation of mutual understanding that allows them to forge a cautious new partnership.

Inherent in the characters’ negotiations for survival is the dire knowledge that the land itself is currently failing them. Burdened by the looming threat of drought, Pops hates the thought of leaving the ranch that has belonged to his family for generations, but even the inherent peace of the landscape and Hig’s fanciful appreciation of The Transformative Beauty of Nature cannot hide the fact that this particular setting cannot sustain a human population indefinitely. To survive, Cima and Pops must throw their lot in with Hig despite the risks of trusting a complete stranger with their lives. In this light, the plane and Hig’s ability to fly thus become the currency of their negotiations, with the promise of the pair’s valuable companionship serving as incentive for Hig to comply with their plan. Thus, on these terms, all three survivors gain hope and motivation at the thought of Finding New Purpose After Societal Collapse.