WINNER OF THE 2012 IMPAC DUBLIN AWARD On a cold quiet day between Christmas & the New Year a mans body is found in an abandoned apartment. His friends look on but theyre dead too. Their bodies found in squats & sheds & alleyways across the city. Victims of a bad batch of heroin theyre in the shadows a chorus keeping vigil as the hours pass paying their own particular homage as their friends body is taken away examined investigated & cremated. All of their stories are laid out piece by broken piece through a series of fractured narratives. We meet Robert the deceased the only alcoholic in a sprawling group of junkies; Danny just back from uncomfortable holidays with family who discovers the body & futiley searches for his other friends to share the news of Roberts death; Laura Roberts daughter who stumbles into the junkys life when she moves in with her father after years apart; Heather who has her own place for the first time since she was a teenager; Mike the Falklands War vet; & all the others. Theirs are stories of lives fallen through the cracks hopes flaring & dying love overwhelmed by a stronger need & the havoc wrought by drugs distress & the disregard of the wider world. These invisible people live in a parallel reality out of reach of basic creature comforts like food & shelter. In their sudden deaths it becomes clear they are treated with more respect than they ever were in their short lives. Intense exhilarating & shot through with hope & fury Even the Dogs is an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society--littered with love loss despair & a half-glimpse of redemption.