'Billed as the next Stoner, this 1967 reissue is in fact the better
novel...a rich and challenging psychodrama, based on brilliant
characterisation... With its echoes of East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain,
this satisfyingly complex story deserves another shot at rounding up public
admiration' Guardian 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. WITH AN AFTERWORD BY ANNIE PROULX