SPOILER WARNING: At the 30 minute mark, we begin to discuss some of the key events that take place towards the end of the book. Although I don’t believe it actually “spoils” the book, if you plan to read it and want to maintain an element of suprise, consider tuning out at the half way point.
“Life is the training ground for death.”
King of Dogs is a hyper-masculine action novel that takes place in a pre-apocalyptic desert landscape of Moab, Utah after the collapse and moral decay of America. The main character, Grayson, is an Orthodox Christian described as “a warrior and philosopher but legitimately neither.”
With an infiltration of conspiring third-world mercinaries imported by global elites, Grayson faces a constant barrage of moral dilemmas in a battleground of life and death. Often these dilemmas involve confronting evil face to face with violence, bloodshed and adrenaline driven survival scenarios under extreme conditions. Edwards’ writing style admittedly draws from his key influence Cormack McCarthy and paints a vivid picture that invokes the senses; often I swore I could smell the cigarette smoke, see the shadows of a red desert sunset and hear the racking of firearms.
Although author Andrew Edwards describes himself as "just a family man from Oregon who wrote a novel,” I was honored to have him take an hour out of his busy family life on a Tuesday afternoon to answer questions, discuss his inspiration and listen to me ramble about what stood out to me in his book.
King of Dogs was perhaps one of the most surprising books I’ve read since launching the book club early last year. It was our first novel and despite being 324 pages, I was so hooked by the story I was able to complete the reading in roughly 4 sessions. If you’d like to explore more fictional works in the book club, please don’t hesistate to offer suggestions as always.
You can purchase King of Dogs on Amazon and with Bitcoin on canonic.xyz. He can be found on X and here on Substack where he writes Golden Goat Guild.
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