The Dog Who Was There - Ron Marasco - ★★★.½

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Ron Marasco

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: January 31, 2017

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction set against the background of Jesus’ final days. Narrated from a dog’s perspective. The dog is adorable; the secondary characters are good. The story is easy in flow and not overly preachy. The writing is anachronous, so the historical feel gets diluted. Jesus doesn’t have an active role in this story, so don’t expect a story focussing on Him. Recommended as long as you can ignore the modernisms.

Plot Preview:

Seven-year-old Barley is a happy dog, enjoying life with his caring owners – a woodcarver Duv and his wife Ada. However, after life changes in a shocking way, Barley finds himself with a new master – Samid, a homeless man who indulges in petty crimes. From both owners and from the events unfurling around him connected to someone called the teacher, Barley learns the meaning of true love and forgiveness.

The story comes to us in Barley’s third-person perspective.

Barley is the main reason to pick this book up. It’s almost impossible to hate a dog character, and Barley is no exception. His perspective doesn't always sound like that of a dog, but this is a common feature of anthropomorphised animal narratives and not a major issue.

Some of the secondary characters – Ada, Duv, Micah, Samid, Prisca – are also quite good. Though Samid is a slightly grey character, he still has his pluses. Ada, Dove, Micah, and Prisca have relatively small roles in the story but they still leave an impact.

The plot is somewhat straightforward, with the dog’s perspective being the differentiating factor. The story is mostly easy to read, except for a couple of brutal scenes, some of which include dog cruelty. If it helps, Barley is alive and unhurt at the end of the book.

The story is set against the background of Jesus’ final few weeks. Those familiar with the Bible will recognise the events Barley refers to. The crucifixion scene is especially poignant. However, do not pick up this book expecting a story of Jesus. The plot revolves mainly around Barley and his human masters. Jesus’ narrative is in the background for the most part, and quite sparing in the first half. As a result, the book is more like historical fiction than religious fiction.

Some of Jesus’s thoughts and lessons do make it to the book, thanks to Barley’s companions who hear of the “new teacher”. But the book never gets too preachy. The ending stays true to the Christian tone. I liked that the story didn’t end with the crucifixion but on a positive, hopeful note.

The main reason why I couldn’t rate this book higher is the many anachronisms and inaccuracies in Barley’s first-person narrative. For example, there’s no way a story set in the first century would call its timepoint “first century AD”, that too before Jesus was crucified; no way would the skin of any of the people around Barley been ‘pink’; and no way words such as projectile existed then. Some leeway can be made for linguistic anomalies, but blatant errors ought to be avoided.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 5 hrs 31 min, is narrated by the author himself. His narration is mostly good, but I’m guessing he wasn’t an experienced narrator whenever this book was recorded. There’s a sentence repeated once, and a few times, one can hear him breathing into the mic. But in all honesty, this would be noticeable only to avid listeners. He gives a fair variation across the character voices and infuses their dialogues with the right emotions. The audio version is hence a good way of checking out this story.

Overall, I liked the book except for its erroneous parts. It helped that I wasn’t expecting a story featuring Jesus in a prominent role, else I would have been disappointed. Rather than thinking of this as a religious or biblical fiction novel, read it as a dog’s story set against the background of Jesus’s final weeks.

Recommended to historical fiction and Christian fiction readers. This would be a good book to read during Lent.

My thanks to Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Fiction Audio for providing the DRC of “The Dog Who Was There” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.