The Dog Park Club, the hilarious new novel by local author Cynthia Robinson, tells the story of Max Bravo, a bisexual opera singer who gets embroiled in the mysterious disappearance of a young woman and dog park regular in Berkeley. We might loosely describe it as a mystery, but it isn't what you'd expect from that genre. Robinson does her best throughout the novel to get in funny digs about Berkeley — the city, the phenomenon — which serves as the primary setting for the book.

SFist asked Robinson what her draw was to writing about that fine city across the Bay. "I hella heart Berkeley," she says, "In the same way you're weirdly drawn to that crackpot relative that nobody wants to live within five miles of, and yet, you always want to sit next to at Thanksgiving because you know that -- after like three drinks -- that's the end of the table where all the weird shit is going to break out."

Below, a few choice quotes from the text of Dog Park Club: