Author Lucas Pederson calls the werewolf in his latest novel a dog. Even though dogs and wolves share the same DNA, I’m not 100 percent sure why Pederson conflates the two. My best guess is that he’s using the word “dog” in a derogatory manner. After all, if I was the Wolfman, I wouldn’t want to be called a dog.

In addition, there’s very little description of the titular dog anywhere in the book. At night, Lon Crandle sprouts a muzzle and claws, and—when he walks into a room on two legs—his head brushes against the top of the ceiling. But that’s about all the information we get. Rightly or wrongly, I pictured him as a cross between Lon Chaney Jr. and a drawing by comic book artist Reed Crandall. 

Dog Fight begins with a cage fight between Lon and a young, inexperienced adversary. As the eldest and strongest participant in the underground dog fighting circuit, Lon defeats the pup easily. He isn’t happy about it though. He has to win, there’s no other options. Kill or be killed. Eat or starve. He knows the rules. 

Later after the match, Lon grapples with an existential crisis. He’s 40 years old and can’t keep fighting like this forever. What kind of future is waiting for him? Like Ivan Martin in the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, Lon is tired of being a puppet and a slave. He yearns to be free—he needs to escape from his life of ritualized violence before it’s too late. 

But even after he escapes from his underground prison, Lon can’t shake his oppressors. His newfound life in Minnesota’s Chippewa National Forest turns into a deadly TV gameshow that pits him against a handful of eccentric assassins competing for a $5 million grand prize. There’s even a mysterious feral dogman on his trail.

It’s too bad that Lon’s Fight Club experience turns into a perverse Hunger Games experience. During his time in the woods (before everything turns into a shit show), he briefly finds peace in nature. I wouldn’t exactly call him a Henry David Thoreau- or John Muir-like transcendentalist, but for a moment his savage breast is calmed by the purity and splendor of the environment surrounding him. Writes Pederson: “In the trees, squirrels played and birds sang without a care in the world. A little jealous, Lon smiled. Ah, to be a carefree squirrel or bird. Just living your life. Living free.” 

[ Dog Fight / By Lucas Pederson / First Printing: June 2025 / ISBN: 9781645620419 ]