Tarnopolsky, Damian. Goya’s Dog. Penguin New York 2009. F; December 2010.

I came very close to stopping this book in the middle, which I almost never do. The protagonist is annoyingly self-defeating, doesn’t pay rent, stays in bed all day, pisses everybody off, writes hideous letters to important people who could make or break him, even fails in his suicide attempt. I’m glad I stayed with it, because it ends up a very nice love story with a killer twist, and then a double twist finish consistent with the rest of the book. The writing seems way off the mark in some of the figurative references, but ends up oddly bang on for the plot and character. 8.0/7.2