The Dogs of Babel

In The Dogs of Babel (2003) by Carolyn Parkhurst, narrator Paul Iverson seeks answers to his wife's mysterious death by attempting to teach his dog—the sole witness of the incident—how to speak English.

As the story opens, linguist Paul Iverson is calling home. Instead of his wife, Alexandra Ransome, Paul hears a police officer at the other end of the line. The policeman suggests he hurry home, where Paul learns that his wife has died. The police believe that Alexandra, or Lexy, was climbing an apple tree and fell.

Paul doesn't believe Lexy's death is an accident, as he discovers subtle inconsistencies throughout his home. It appears that Lexy cooked the steak they were planning to grill that night and gave it to the dog. Furthermore, someone rearranged a bookshelf. He also wonders why his wife was in the apple tree at all.



Lorelai, the couple's dog, is the only witness to Lexy's death. Paul decides to teach her to speak English so she can tell him what occurred. There are past attempts at similar undertakings, such as when Wendell Hollis, "The Dog Butcher of Brooklyn," performed surgery on Dog J so that the dog could mimic human vocal patterns. Paul quits his job, dedicating his life to teaching Lorelei how to speak.

As Paul works with Lorelei, he reflects on his history with Lexy. He first met Lexy when he purchased a square, hard-boiled egg mold from her yard sale. Their first date was a week-long trip to Disney World and then to a masquerade wedding where Lexy was delivering some of her handmade masks. Lexy made these masks for a living and eventually had began making death masks for the recently deceased. Lexy was also sometimes depressed and would tell Paul stories about her childhood, about how she used to pull out her hair and cut her wrists. Paul concedes that she was prone to fits of anger.

Paul eventually decides to write Wendell Hollis, who is incarcerated. Wendell suggests he get in touch with the leader of the Cerberus Society, Remo. The Cerberus Society is a group that specializes in canine communication. Paul attends a meeting, and the group presents the mutilated Dog J, whom they have kidnapped. The dog doesn't speak, much to Paul's disappointment, and the meeting is raided by the police. Paul escapes capture and arrives home to find that Lorelei is gone.



Entirely alone, Paul becomes depressed. He sees a commercial for a Psychic Hotline and thinks he recognizes Lexy's voice. He calls the hotline hoping to contact Lady Arabelle, the woman with whom Lexy may have spoken. Lady Arabelle reminds Paul that Lexy was pregnant.

Lorelei is at an animal shelter. She was kidnapped, presumably by men from the Cerberus Society, and her larynx was removed, preventing her from speaking or barking. Paul finds her and notices a message from Lexy on her collar. He then realizes that the books had been rearranged as a message as well. These messages lead Paul to believe that Lexy committed suicide. Having found some form of closure, Paul goes back to work.

The title refers to the biblical Tower of Babel found in Genesis 11:1-9. According to the story, all of humanity following the Great Flood spoke one language. They decided to build a tower that would be so tall they could touch heaven. God, angered at their hubris, changed all of their languages so they could no longer collaborate, causing them to scatter around the world.



The novel also references Tam Lin, a legendary Scottish character who appears in a forest and impregnates an unsuspecting maiden. When the maiden returns to the woods, she learns Tam is actually a knight imprisoned by the Queen of Fairies. In order to rescue him, she must grab him and not let him go, even though the queen turns him into different monstrous creatures. Lexy identified with the queen, who is enraged when the maiden steals her "finest knight," but after her death, Paul tells her she was always Tam Lin, and he won't let her go. The message on Lorelei's collar reads, "You are my finest knight," which is what the queen said to Tam before she set him free to the world of mortals.

Masks are a significant theme in the novel, as Lexy, a literal maker of masks, always hides her feelings of depression behind her figurative mask.

The debut novel garnered mixed reviews. Viva Hardigg wrote for Entertainment Weekly: "Parkhurst tells her tale with considerable skill" and "packs a serious literary arsenal." Stephen King wrote in a 2007 column for the same magazine, "I believe that 70 percent of the fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists is dreck... I also believe that a book that sells a million copies—as The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst, may eventually do—is not automatically trash."



A bestseller, the book was named one of The New York Times Notable Fiction & Poetry books of 2003.