Joseph O’Neill

Moderated by Kevin Holohan, Brooklyn-based Irish writer of The Brothers' Lot

Wednesday, December 2 | 7:30 pm

"Every page of The Dog is a little masterpiece of comedy, erudition and linguistic acrobatics.”
- The Washington Post

"Questions of culpability and morality abound in O’Neill’s elegant, frequently brilliant, novel.” - The New York Times Book Review

The author of the best-selling and award-winning Netherland returns to Irish Arts Center to read from his compelling new novel The Dog—a comedic tale of alienation and heartbreak set in the glittering Middle Eastern city of Dubai.

Distraught by a breakup with his long-term girlfriend, our unnamed hero leaves New York to take an unusual job in a strange desert metropolis. In Dubai at the height of its self-invention as a futuristic Shangri-la, he struggles with his new position as the “family officer” of the capricious and very rich Batros family. And he struggles, even more helplessly, with the “doghouse,” a seemingly inescapable condition of culpability in which he feels himself constantly trapped—even if he’s just going to the bathroom, or reading e-mail, or scuba diving.

Joseph O'Neill was born in Cork, Ireland, and grew up in Mozambique, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, and Holland. His previous works include the novel Netherland, winner of the 2009 Pen/Faulkner award and the Kerry Fiction Prize, and the non-fiction book Blood-Dark Track. He lives in New York City.