The Dog Stars

Throughout The Dog Stars, many of the characters feel deeply displaced from their former lives, grieving the absence of lost loved ones and the disappearance of an entire civilization that once sustained them and gave them a sense of purpose. In the aftermath of this widespread collapse, the few ragtag survivors are left with very little to sustain their spirits, and most of their time and energy is devoted to seeking the bare necessities of food, shelter, and safety. As Hig and Bangley’s spare lifestyle indicates, there is very little time left over for indulging in the social niceties that build and sustain a community. Floundering in his grief and haunted by old memories, Hig finds it very difficult to resist an existential sense of despair; even his most philosophical moments are tinged with a deadly form of melancholy, and it is only when he finally ventures out and discovers Pops and Cima that he finally regains a greater zest for life. 

In the novel’s early chapters, Hig presents himself as something of a lost soul, and his meandering, nonlinear narrative style reflects his own spiritual desolation and lack of purpose. Even when he is faced with immediate crises, he finds his mind drifting away to parallel connections and old memories, but when he overcomes Pops and Cima’s initial distrust and begins building new bonds with them, his sense of displacement is eased. As he admits to himself, “For the first time in what seemed like years my head seemed clear” (176). Yet even in the midst of these positive developments, Hig’s sense of displacement remains, for there is no ready way to remedy the complete societal collapse that plagues his current existence. 

Pops and Cima also struggle to redefine their purpose in the aftermath of the epidemic, for although Hig discovers them tending to what appears to be a well-functioning ranch, they are both haunted by the knowledge that imminent drought and climate change have already doomed their home. If they want to survive, they have no choice but to leave. Pops finds this prospect especially daunting despite his lack of complaints, for he has spent much of his life dedicating his efforts to maintaining the legacy of his place. Now that he must uproot his existence at this late stage of his life, his own inner battle with displacement becomes particularly acute. In his case, the remedy is to apply his extensive skills to new situations, contributing his decisive actions and expertise in a way that helps his comrades to survive. He therefore finds a new purpose in safeguarding his daughter from various perils and helping Hig in the quest to return safely to Erie. 

Nowhere is the characters’ shared struggle to find purpose more evident than in their shock upon witnessing the ruined landscape that used to be Grand Junction. As Cima vomits at the sight, Hig muses, “I understood the shock of seeing Grand Junction. It was one thing to lose the whole world as you knew it, another to see, to maybe smell your old neighborhood as charnel house and killing field” (273). Post-collapse society has robbed these characters of everything they have known, and time and again, Hig wanders through the world with a lost, forlorn air, seeking any form of respite from his soul-deep confusion. On occasion, this preoccupation gets Hig in trouble, distracted as he is by his thoughts of the past. By contrast, Bangley, who has suffered losses and griefs as monumental as Hig’s, ironically thrives in his new environment, using the tasks of day-to-day survival to find an agency that he didn’t possess in his past existence when the world was still functioning as it should. With Bangley’s success as a savvy comrade and a shrewd tactician, Heller suggests that even in the midst of great deprivation, it is possible to find a new form of equilibrium and adapt to the necessities of a world turned inside out. The end of the novel also supports this idea as all the characters band together to create a humble society that is nonetheless much greater than the sum of its parts.