Paul Auster has seemed somewhat distracted as of late. Since writing the screenplays to Smoke and its sequel Blue In The Face—not to mention writing and directing Lulu On The Bridge—the only new work to have emerged from the recesses of his mind has been the poorly received memoir Hand To Mouth. Though Timbuktu is a return to fiction, the novel is hardly a return to form. For starters, its story is told from the perspective of Mr. Bones, a dog—yes, a dog—long kept as a companion by a homeless writer named Willy G. Christmas. When Christmas dies during a search for his old, supportive English teacher, Mr. Bones must for the first time fend for himself, wandering the mid-Atlantic states in search of a caring home. Timbuktu does have its moments of touching sentimentality, but the premise is so silly that the emotional passages come off as manipulative. After all, not much is as heart-wrenching as a lonely, hungry dog trying to make do in the world, let alone a dog given the personality of a mildly retarded child. What's more, the unbreakable bond between man and mutt is a subject that has been exploited countless times before in better books; Timbuktu comes off as a Disney film treatment with a dark side. Short enough to be read in one sitting and almost simple enough to make for a good children's book, Timbuktu is a curious work of unfathomable mediocrity.