Dog's story is tender, yet never sentimental

Few novels are as delightful as this, and even fewer sustain such delight without resorting to mawkishness. Paul Auster's latest work is a dog's story - told not by the canine hero, but by a third-person narrator, one who clearly understands dogs, their loyalty, dependency, vulnerability and humour. This is no cartoon - when we meet Mr Bones on a Baltimore street, he is facing the ultimate crisis, the impending death of his master Willy, a vagabond poet.

Man and dog have been together for seven years, since Mr Bones was a puppy. Years before, Willy had got involved with drugs - "Name an illegal substance, and Willy either smoked it or snorted it or shot it into his veins." Not only did his habit put paid to his academic career, Willy also did a stint in a looney bin before returning home to Mom, where he switched from drugs to alcohol.

Life there became a ritual of TV watching and drinking. Until the night he has a visitation from none other than Santa Claus - "the only force for good left in the world" - who springs forth "from the depths of Television Land to debunk the certitudes of Willy's skepticism and put his soul back together again." The message of Christmas is no longer lost on Willy - he "turns himself into a saint."

All of this is background, it is Willy's history. Mr Bones finds out a great deal about his master's past by listening to Willy's mother, Mrs Gurevitch. There is also, of course, the disturbing fact of Willy having a picture of Santa Claus tattooed on to his arm. This causes much grief to Mrs Gurevitch - "tattooing was proscribed by Jewish law" - nor can any self-respecting Jew tolerate a Santa Claus tattoo. Willy's mom regards it as "a token of betrayal and incurable madness".

When Mr Bones first comes into Willy's life, it is touch and go for a while, what with house training and the usual puddles. Eventually, he is accepted by her. But Willy proves the ideal master for a dog. They winter at Mom's in Brooklyn and spend the rest of the year on the road. There are good times until Willy's health breaks down. The call of death leads the pair to Baltimore, where Willy hopes to find the one person who has always believed in his poetry, his old schoolteacher with whom Willy has long since lost contact. The strength of the book lies in its narrative voice; its tone is candid and colourfully New York; direct and blunt, but kindly. Mr Bones is a dog who dreams; he is also likeable, not oppressively heroic, and certainly loves Willy. "Had he been capable of smiling, he would have smiled at that moment. Had be been capable of shedding tears, he would have shed tears. Indeed, if such a thing were possible, he would have been laughing and crying at the same time - both celebrating and mourning his beloved master . . ."

Aware of his dog's plight, Willy has repeatedly advised him to be cautious - strays have more to fear than dog-catchers. The reader fears for the little mutt as he battles on.

When New Yorker Paul Auster arrived on the literary scene with City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room - better known collectively as The New York Trilogy, which was published in London in 1987 - he owed far more to the French tradition than the American. Those books possess a cool, determinedly intellectual aura which would change with his later works. With The Music of Chance (1990), a kind of road novel, and Leviathan (1992), an offbeat thriller of sorts, Auster's style seemed to become looser, less self-conscious, less archly autobiographical. Coincidence remained important to him, as did literary tricks - often the most tedious of devices.

Still, those two novels signalled a process of change. Another Paul Auster emerged more fully with Mr Vertigo (1994), a wholly captivating picaresque, first-person narrative.

Now this joy of a book, a true love story, which is as sensitive as it is daring - after all, Auster is a serious writer - and funny, confirms he has a sense of pathos to match his cleverness. Above all, the sheer appeal of the narrative never upstages the relaxed elegance of a uniquely well-written, intelligent and beguiling performance.

Eileen Battersby is an Irish Times journalist