I loved the dog in LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (the book—I haven’t watched the series). I abandoned SAWTELLE because I couldn’t bear to watch Almondine suffer or die. Just as I turn off TOP GUN in the “Great Balls of Fire” scene so Goose never dies, Almondine will always be safe in my imagination. I had a public meltdown on Twitter when I read Sharon Creech’s LOVE THAT DOG after being assured the dog doesn’t die in the book—semantics that sent me over the edge and sparked an apology from screech herself. My childhood dog, who was not a great friend but was my dog, was killed by a car, so that trauma lies within me. I had been looking forward to French’s book as my spring break read, but perhaps not now.
I once recommended Marley and Me for a friend’s bookclub. Let’s just say it caused such arguments about its merit, it was nearly the end of the group. Well, I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the webpage recommendation- like you I can not with any animal suffering. The latest example, poor old Snoop in Anatomy of A Fall.
As a child in the early sixties I remember a book called Cop Shooter about a boy and his dog and adversity. I think it was very sad, but it's only the title that has stuck with me.
Where the Red Fern Grows was another a sad dog book. Those hunting hounds, I can hear their baying.
There are so many YA books where the dogs die, that Gordon Kormon wrote a book called No More Dead Dogs about a kid who's tired of books where the dog dies.
I am currently reading *Feed Them Silence* by Lee Mandelo. It is about a scientist who interfaces her brain with a wolf in the wild as part of a study. The descriptions of what it feels like to be a wolf are amazing. The troubles of the wolf and the scientist intertwine and are the spine of this short novel. While not specifically about dogs, I felt this fit.
Does "Love That Dog " by Sharon Creech count? so good.
I always say don't start a book or movie if there's a dogs name in the title, it means the dog is gonna die. Not entirely true, but i'd rather play it safe.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is one book that I still remember years after I read it. It’s the first book that ever made me cry. It’s narrated by a dog named Enzo, telling the story of his owner and their lives. The book sucks you in early and ends with an emotional roller coaster.
FAITHFUL RUSLAN by Georgi Vladimov is so, so wrenchingly good on so many levels, but it's also heartbreaking on those exact same levels. Rarely have I seen a writer so thoroughly inhabit the character of a dog, however. I also think of Happiness by Aminatta Forna (about urban foxes) and, of course, of James Herriot's glowing dog depictions, which usually manage to be quite comforting.
I am here to give a warning: we read Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce for my book club. The dog is killed in the book! Everyone at the meeting said oh what a fun quirky book: I’m like: “They killed the dog!”. Definite no thanks. I also wasn’t a fan of how the dog was written in Lessons in Chemistry. This puts me in the distinct minority. They only had one episode of the TV show depict him this way and then never spoke of it again. Probably smart (I liked the show better than the book). Luckily nothing happens to him.
I can’t think of any book off the top of my head that had a good dog story. But I just finished another season of All Creatures Great and Small. There are many wonderful dogs in that show! I especially love the rich spoiled dog Tricki.
While we’re talking Tana French, I have read three of her books and loved them immensely. For my book club we recently read The Likeness. I found it gripping and read it in a week, staying up too late to finish it. I go to my meeting and barely anyone liked it. Many couldn’t finish it! Is it me or them? Since you called her a great crime novelist I feel like you’re going to side with me but maybe there’s something wrong with The Likeness? I thought it was terrific.
"Fifteen Dogs" is outstanding and was a bit of a sensation in CanLit. A bet between Hermes and Apollo gives human consciousness to, you guessed it, fifteen dogs.
I was going to say The Art of Racing in the Rain, but I see that a couple of people already have. It has a couple of strikes against it in that it's narrated by a dog (sounds super-corny) and is about car racing (definitely not an interest of mine) but I loved it anyway.
I also can't face reading (or watching) anything where something bad happens to an animal, and I even get a little teary-eyed thinking about books where nothing bad happens (to the animal, anyway), but that contain a close human-animal relationship. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff comes to mind.
I love this post! I too worry about dogs all the time, which is tricky for any fan of mysteries and thrillers. As Roger Ebert said, it's not what something is about, it's how it is about it, and so sometimes I can accept the death or peril (John Wick, Banshees of Inisherin), but one of my peeves -- often happens in film -- is when you see the main character, say a detective, with a dog, or a bird, or maybe the camera pans over a fish tank -- and then the detective goes out on a case or something and doesn't come home for days, and I worry about who fed the fish and walked the dog. (Ethan Hunt has a dog in Mission Impossible 3 and then he just goes off to save the world; does the dog ever wonder what the hell happened to Ethan?)
That's one of the reasons I enjoy Jonathan Ames' A Man Named Doll and its sequel: you get a sense that Ames loves dogs and he writes wonderfully and humorously about Doll's dog and is always careful to note who's watching the dog as the case amps up. For as violent as the novels can be I don't think Ames would ever put the dog in peril. In the first book there's a scene where he sits down to his classic loner detective dinner and writes:
"Some intrepid ants were crawling around on the counter as I prepared this feast, but I didn't have the heart to kill them. They were going about their business with such great purpose and industriousness tat it seemed unfair to just come along and crush them. They had things to do! And I hate to kill anything."
As an animal lover, and a fan of mystery and suspense (including Tana French), I love Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which does contain animal death, but again, it's a case of not the what, but the how.
Brief aside on this 65-degree March day in Chicago. I adored The Searcher but sometimes I randomly think of this line, about the protagonist, Cal, missing the weather back home in Chicago, and chuckle: "He can't imagine ever getting accustomed to the effortless hairpin turns of the weather around here. He's used to a hot sunny day being a hot sunny day, a cold rainy day being a cold rainy day, and so on."
I loved the dog in LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (the book—I haven’t watched the series). I abandoned SAWTELLE because I couldn’t bear to watch Almondine suffer or die. Just as I turn off TOP GUN in the “Great Balls of Fire” scene so Goose never dies, Almondine will always be safe in my imagination. I had a public meltdown on Twitter when I read Sharon Creech’s LOVE THAT DOG after being assured the dog doesn’t die in the book—semantics that sent me over the edge and sparked an apology from screech herself. My childhood dog, who was not a great friend but was my dog, was killed by a car, so that trauma lies within me. I had been looking forward to French’s book as my spring break read, but perhaps not now.
I once recommended Marley and Me for a friend’s bookclub. Let’s just say it caused such arguments about its merit, it was nearly the end of the group. Well, I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the webpage recommendation- like you I can not with any animal suffering. The latest example, poor old Snoop in Anatomy of A Fall.
As a child in the early sixties I remember a book called Cop Shooter about a boy and his dog and adversity. I think it was very sad, but it's only the title that has stuck with me.
Where the Red Fern Grows was another a sad dog book. Those hunting hounds, I can hear their baying.
There are so many YA books where the dogs die, that Gordon Kormon wrote a book called No More Dead Dogs about a kid who's tired of books where the dog dies.
I am currently reading *Feed Them Silence* by Lee Mandelo. It is about a scientist who interfaces her brain with a wolf in the wild as part of a study. The descriptions of what it feels like to be a wolf are amazing. The troubles of the wolf and the scientist intertwine and are the spine of this short novel. While not specifically about dogs, I felt this fit.
Does "Love That Dog " by Sharon Creech count? so good.
I always say don't start a book or movie if there's a dogs name in the title, it means the dog is gonna die. Not entirely true, but i'd rather play it safe.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is one book that I still remember years after I read it. It’s the first book that ever made me cry. It’s narrated by a dog named Enzo, telling the story of his owner and their lives. The book sucks you in early and ends with an emotional roller coaster.
Enzo in The Art of Racing in the Rain
FAITHFUL RUSLAN by Georgi Vladimov is so, so wrenchingly good on so many levels, but it's also heartbreaking on those exact same levels. Rarely have I seen a writer so thoroughly inhabit the character of a dog, however. I also think of Happiness by Aminatta Forna (about urban foxes) and, of course, of James Herriot's glowing dog depictions, which usually manage to be quite comforting.
I am here to give a warning: we read Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce for my book club. The dog is killed in the book! Everyone at the meeting said oh what a fun quirky book: I’m like: “They killed the dog!”. Definite no thanks. I also wasn’t a fan of how the dog was written in Lessons in Chemistry. This puts me in the distinct minority. They only had one episode of the TV show depict him this way and then never spoke of it again. Probably smart (I liked the show better than the book). Luckily nothing happens to him.
I can’t think of any book off the top of my head that had a good dog story. But I just finished another season of All Creatures Great and Small. There are many wonderful dogs in that show! I especially love the rich spoiled dog Tricki.
While we’re talking Tana French, I have read three of her books and loved them immensely. For my book club we recently read The Likeness. I found it gripping and read it in a week, staying up too late to finish it. I go to my meeting and barely anyone liked it. Many couldn’t finish it! Is it me or them? Since you called her a great crime novelist I feel like you’re going to side with me but maybe there’s something wrong with The Likeness? I thought it was terrific.
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones is a wonderful one.
"Fifteen Dogs" is outstanding and was a bit of a sensation in CanLit. A bet between Hermes and Apollo gives human consciousness to, you guessed it, fifteen dogs.
I agree that Old Yeller is the GOAT but I was surprised that Call of the Wild by Jack London was not included in your essay.
I was going to say The Art of Racing in the Rain, but I see that a couple of people already have. It has a couple of strikes against it in that it's narrated by a dog (sounds super-corny) and is about car racing (definitely not an interest of mine) but I loved it anyway.
I also can't face reading (or watching) anything where something bad happens to an animal, and I even get a little teary-eyed thinking about books where nothing bad happens (to the animal, anyway), but that contain a close human-animal relationship. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff comes to mind.
I love this post! I too worry about dogs all the time, which is tricky for any fan of mysteries and thrillers. As Roger Ebert said, it's not what something is about, it's how it is about it, and so sometimes I can accept the death or peril (John Wick, Banshees of Inisherin), but one of my peeves -- often happens in film -- is when you see the main character, say a detective, with a dog, or a bird, or maybe the camera pans over a fish tank -- and then the detective goes out on a case or something and doesn't come home for days, and I worry about who fed the fish and walked the dog. (Ethan Hunt has a dog in Mission Impossible 3 and then he just goes off to save the world; does the dog ever wonder what the hell happened to Ethan?)
That's one of the reasons I enjoy Jonathan Ames' A Man Named Doll and its sequel: you get a sense that Ames loves dogs and he writes wonderfully and humorously about Doll's dog and is always careful to note who's watching the dog as the case amps up. For as violent as the novels can be I don't think Ames would ever put the dog in peril. In the first book there's a scene where he sits down to his classic loner detective dinner and writes:
"Some intrepid ants were crawling around on the counter as I prepared this feast, but I didn't have the heart to kill them. They were going about their business with such great purpose and industriousness tat it seemed unfair to just come along and crush them. They had things to do! And I hate to kill anything."
As an animal lover, and a fan of mystery and suspense (including Tana French), I love Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which does contain animal death, but again, it's a case of not the what, but the how.
Brief aside on this 65-degree March day in Chicago. I adored The Searcher but sometimes I randomly think of this line, about the protagonist, Cal, missing the weather back home in Chicago, and chuckle: "He can't imagine ever getting accustomed to the effortless hairpin turns of the weather around here. He's used to a hot sunny day being a hot sunny day, a cold rainy day being a cold rainy day, and so on."