Here is a first novel like no other: a spellbinding tale that both creates its own fully realized world perspective and provides an incisive look at the ways that humans and animals resemble each other. A group of elegant monster dogs in top hats, tails, and bustle skirts become instant celebrities when they come to New York in 2008. Refugees from a town whose residents had been utterly isolated for a hundred years, the dogs retain the nineteenth-century Germanic culture of the humans who created them. They are wealthy and glamorous and seem to lead charmed lives - but they find adjusting to the modern world difficult, and when a young woman, Cleo Pira, befriends them, she discovers that a strange, incurable illness threatens them all with extinction. When the dogs construct their dream home, a fantastic castle on the Lower East Side, and barricade themselves inside, Cleo finds herself one of the few human witnesses to a mad, lavish party that may prove to be the final act in the drama of the lives of the monster dogs.
- ISBN10 0340715588
- ISBN13 9780340715581
- Publish Date 15 January 1998 (first published 1 March 1997)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 31 January 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Imprint Sceptre
- Format Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
- Pages 291
- Language English