Is TC Boyle calling his teenage protagonist a dog?

My first take on T.C. Boyle's Balto.


You spend an afternoon drinking bottles of wine and cognac with your mistress when you realize you're extraordinarily late to pick up your adolescent and school age daughters from school. Your mistress drives off as soon as the valet brings her sports car around and as you get behind the wheel, you realize the booze has hit you harder than you thought. So, you pick up your teenage daughter and ask her to drive you home.

This is the premise of Boyle's Balto, the fourth story in BASS. I'm thrilled to report that the main characters in this story are under 45 (at least), but the jury's still out on how much I liked this story.

Last week, SynecdoChick mentioned that the characters in this story are white, rich people, and while I wouldn't argue that the father is rich in this story, he's losing everything. He's lost his wife - she's gone off (or back - considering that the girls have French names) to Paris. He's lost his car after letting his daughter behind the wheel. He looks like he's about to lose his job if he keeps taking long,liquid lunches, and he's about to lose his children. Am I right in guessing, Synedoc, that there's a bourgeoise trope of having it all, but losing it slowly?

The story of Balto, the sleigh dog that brings vaccine to Inuit children dying from diptheria, comes into play after the daughter hits another child while driving her drunken father's car. The daughter has to testify before child services and lie
to protect him so he won't lose them. Or more importantly (b/c it's implied that her mother is gone and not coming back), that she doesn't lose her family.

Why am I undecided? Boyle switches back and forth between dual points of view easily. But I feel really strongly about the scenario where the father asks his daughter to help by driving for him because he's too drunk. It strikes me as selfish and reckless. While I have a twinge of sympathy for the father, I feel extraordinarily sadden for the teenage protagonist, who is essentially an orphan or will be by the time her father is through. But then again, I wonder if this is a successful story, then for making me feel this much?

I am still waiting for the edgy, culturally diverse fiction by unestablished and maybe writers who were born after the Johnson administration. Is it that there is so little quality fiction from this age group? Is it that a pack of established writers that defined short fiction for decades is getting older? Or is it that the publications have an older, white baby-boomer audience, ergo they have stories about older, white baby-boomers? I don't know.

If you could say anything to this author about this story, what would it be?