The Power of the Dog Summary
Thomas Savage

The Power of the Dog Overview

Thomas Savage’s The Power of the Dog explores the complex relationship between two middle-aged brothers who, in the 1920s, run a sprawling cattle ranch in the bleak wilds of Montana. Brothers Phil and George Burbank are a study in contrast: Phil is sharp-thinking, hard-working, darkly charismatic with a brutal, predatory way of handling people with weaknesses while George is far more easy-going, happily dull, something of a dreamer, and a romantic. The careful balance of the ranch is upended when George marries a widow, Rose, with a teenage son. When the son, Peter, arrives at the ranch for the summer, Phil must confront long-buried questions of his sexual identity. The novel treats among other themes the dysfunctional dynamics of family, the definition of masculinity, the existential dilemma of the outsider, the tension between cruelty and kindness, and the thorny question of sexual identity and homophobia.