Following the success of his novel, 'The Dreamlife of Bridges', Robert Strandquist makes a much-awaited return to the short story form. As always, Strandquist's works explores relationships both familial and sexual, and plumbs the unspoken communications where things go haywire. This collection is more eclectic than his first collection, 'The Inanimate World', covering themes of nature, of building and destruction. Settings are extreme or post-apocalyptic and walk the line of magic realism. Despite the sometimes-alien landscapes his characters inhabit, there is always the motif of adults navigating the riparian paths of longing, love and loss. "The writing is so beautiful, the language shining, enlightening a sacramental universe ... It is not the smallness, nor the dog, but the barking that is important, the raging against the coming of the night." -Prairie Fire "Strandquist's prose is spare and precise, studded with startling, evocative images. ... Strandquist has a wildimagination and an awe-inspiring mastery of language and form ...'A Small Dog Barking' is an excellent collection, well worth reading and rereading." -Books in Canada "Strandquist once again proves he's incapable of writing a dull sentence." -The Vancouver Sun