The following excerpt refers to Everett Hyde’s letter:
“Ashley’s former professor drew a deep breath and said, “Tough stuff, isn’t it? I received it, via his publisher, about three months after the publication of his third novel, Rain Dogs. About a year before the death, as I recall it. I was asking his publisher to pass along to Hyde some questions for a biographical section I originally envisioned opening my book on Hyde and his first three novels. This is what I received instead.”
Chase had placed the professor on speaker-phone after Ashley had called Adam Greenwood, engaging him in a bit of small talk and reminiscing about classes with him before explaining about Chase and his new project and then passing the phone to Chase.
Rubbing his jaw, Chase said, “Rain Dogs. That’s an interesting title. What’s it mean?”
Ashley narrowed her eyes, then raised her hands in a, “Why are you asking that?” gesture.
Professor Adam Greenwood hesitated, then said, “You haven’t read any of Hyde’s novels, Mr. Alger?”
“The first, I think, but it’s been a long, long time ago,” Chase said. He squirmed in his chair, trying to avoid Ashley’s eyes. “Rest assured, I’m knuckling down to re-reading them soon. I was freshly struck by that title when you said it just now.”
“Tom Waits, the singer-songwriter, used it for an album title not long after Hyde’s last book appeared,” the professor said. “Maybe it was done in homage to Hyde. Anyway, it’s from an obscure turn of phrase. In New York City, or any large urban area, the dogs may wander the streets at will, but sometimes the rain comes, hard and unexpected, and the dogs lose their trail for the path back home, the scent washed away. So they wander around lost and stray, or rain dogs.”
“Evocative,” Chase said.”
***
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