Moondogs, by Alexander Yates, is fantastical and adventurous, but it also contains some truth about human nature within it’s “mystical realist” pages. Even though you’re reading about a seemingly super-powerful rooster, a magical posse of men, and an earthquake-causing lady, you’ll also be witnessing some human emotion that normally does not coexist with such fantasy strewn pages. The character of Efrem, even though not touted in the summary of the book’s amazon page, was the vehicle for all this human suffering for me.
Efrem is a man who can shoot exceptionally well, and he is taken in by Reynato Ocampo to join his own league of extraordinary gentlemen. But Efrem is subtly complex in the midst of the macho, sad, and comic characters in this book (Ocampo, Benny, the rooster) and that endeared him to me. I understood his idealism and confusion, and Yates writes his perspective almost tenderly. I greedily and speedily read through MOONDOGS, but the parts I loved best were about Efrem. His sense of justice, his super ability, and his eagerness to love were elegantly constructed, and his character was vivid and alive, almost effortlessly so.
It’s this effortless construction of character, which is pretty much universal throughout, even though I had a soft spot for Efrem, that makes this novel shine.
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