![\"colin08\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\")
<\/a>Imagine Bonfire of the Vanities<\/em> with a Maine plot and setting. Carolyn Chute\u2019s new novel, Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves<\/em>, is that kind of brilliant\u2013full of mischief and a great holiday gift for readers who dare to scratch the surface of \u2018the way life should be.\u2019<\/p>\nWhile exposing the cult of fictional St. Onge, a debased settlement run by charismatic Gordon St. Onge and camouflaged by home schooling, it holds a mirror to each and every special one of us. As Kirkus Reviews<\/em> writes, \u201cIn the scornful eyes of Gordon and other settlement members given voice in this polyphonic novel (which also includes the comments of extraterrestrial \u2018grays\u2019\u2026), Ivy is a media lackey of the ruling class, alternately dishing out human-interest pabulum and scary crime stories to keep the masses frightened and passive. In a country that prefers to ignore the existence of social classes, Chute\u2019s contempt for such air-brushing is bracing, as is her refusal to neaten up her decidedly flawed male protagonist\u2019s opinions and actions. \u2018There is only left or right down here among us crawling grubs,\u2019 Gordon sneers. \u2018[A]t the\u00a0top\u2026there is the unity of ideology.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n We caught up with Chute at press time with a few questions. As usual, she\u2019s quicker with a quip than Oscar Levant.<\/p>\n If you could go back in time and tell the author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine<\/em> one secret you\u2019ve learned about writing since, what would that be? Do you like working with multiple points of view? Mainers report more UFO sightings than almost any other state. Why do you think that is? Maine is so off the grid and on the fringe that we\u2019re all fringe, aren\u2019t we? Who among us is still normal enough to lay the keel on the boat? Maine specializes in dark comedy. How would you describe yours? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0??<\/p>\n A wolf moon is the first full moon in January, an inviting time to curl up and read an absorbing story.\u00a0 Chute\u2019s work hits home because it got there from here.<\/p>\n December 2014 Imagine Bonfire of the Vanities with a Maine plot and setting. Carolyn Chute\u2019s new novel, Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves, is that kind of brilliant\u2013full of mischief and a great holiday gift for readers who dare to scratch the surface of \u2018the way life should be.\u2019 While exposing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-10219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-december-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10219"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14443,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10219\/revisions\/14443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDon\u2019t talk with the media.<\/p>\n
\nI certainly wouldn\u2019t do it if I hated it.\u00a0 : )<\/p>\n
\nMaine also has the most reports of bodies buried in cellars. I guess we\u2019re special.<\/p>\n
\nMaybe fringers are normal, and obedience and \u201cgood\u201d behavior are caused by a wicked virus.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"