The Dog Stars

At many points in the novel, Hig observes the stars, as his thoughts grow poetic. At other times, when Hig forgets the names of constellations, he renames them. This signifies the construction of a new relationship between Hig and the world he now lives in, creating a sense of empowerment in an otherwise daunting and dehumanizing post-collapse world.

In Chapter 1, Hig says:

I once had a book on the stars but now I don’t. My memory serves but not stellar ha. So I made up constellations. I made a Bear and Goat but maybe not where they are supposed to be, I made some animals that once were, the ones I know about. I made one for Melissa, her whole self standing there kind of smiling and tall and looking down on me in the winter nights (11).

It’s passages like this that allow Hig to create, or recreate, the world around him, and provide agency to humans’ ability to dictate to the natural world, as opposed to vice versa. As the novel progresses, numerous times Hig’s observations of the stars create tender moments of beauty, providing narrative relief from the devastation. There are moments when Hig compares stars to a stream, and compares himself to a fish nosing through a net in that stream, suggesting Hig, and humanity at large, is but a small fish compared to the vast expanse of the stream of stars and sky above.

Heller brings this motif full circle in the novel’s final pages. Though Hig and Cima do not find closure, their naming of constellations creates a sense of empowerment, suggesting that while the old world is gone, replaced by new rules of survival, agency still exists. Stars account for the book’s closing scene, alluding to the title, further suggesting this motif’s importance:

We name the winter constellations and when we run out of the ones we know—Orion, Taurus, Pleiades, the Chariot—we make them up. Mine are almost always animals, hers almost always food—the Sourdough Pancake with Syrup, the Soft Shell Crab au Gratin. I name one for a scrappy, fish loving dog” (310).