A book that opens with a graphic bull castration definitely makes you sit up and take notice. It is just one of the harsh and often brutal scenes of ranch life that create a powerful, dark contrast to this novel's important message about love and respect, a contrast that pervades up through the shocking ending. Despite having to skim some of the tougher passages (they mostly involve cruelty to animals) I really liked this simple, tough book, and I love what it says about how respect for each other is what makes us human.

The story happens mostly on a ranch in Montana in the 1920s where Phil and George are unmarried brothers who have run the ranch together since their parents left to live in Salt Lake City. Phil's world is blown apart when his brother marries a widow with an autistic teenage boy and they come to live at the ranch. Phil is smart and charismatic but cruel; and unsparing in his harassment of Rose, George's wife, and Peter, her son. Each member of the family faces Phil's abuse in their own way, and the novel ends with a startling twist that will permanently change all of their lives.

The book is not perfect. The characters are a bit overdrawn and at times approach caricature, and there are some jumps in the narrative that are confusing; but the simple power of the writing more than sustains the novel.

The book's title comes from the twenty-second psalm: "Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog,” and it couldn't be more apt.