Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Etna,’ by Paul Yoon

Paul Yoon’s new novel, “Etna,” follows a haunted, battle-scarred war veteran who wants desperately to go home. He also happens to be a dog — a mixed-breed shepherd trained to sniff out bombs for an unnamed military in the throes of an unnamed conflict — and he has no idea where he is anymore, or if his old farm is even still standing after so much violence. Undeterred, he ventures into the great unknown, to somehow find his way back.

The result is a powerful story about survival, the brutal cost of war and what it means to step forward after calamity.

On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the novel with his colleagues Elisabeth Egan and Scott Heller. You can follow along, and add your own comments to the discussion here.

Other books (and poems, and a movie) mentioned in this episode:

• The “Odyssey”
• The work of E.E. Cummings
• The film “A Dog’s Purpose,” directed by Lasse Hallström (adapted from W. Bruce Cameron’s novel, also named “A Dog’s Purpose”)
• “The Vulnerables,” by Sigrid Nunez
• “The Eyes and the Impossible,” by Dave Eggers
• “Angel Down,” by Daniel Kraus
• “Marley & Me,” by John Grogan
• “Flush,” by Virginia Woolf
• “Doggerel,” by Reginald Dwayne Betts
• “Dog Show,” by Billy Collins
• “Deaf Republic,” by Ilya Kaminsky
• “An Immense World,” by Ed Yong
• “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel
• “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy

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