“Dog” by Michelle Herman is a literary novel about a brindle pup, his new owner, and the way he unknowingly impacts her life for the better.
Jill Rosen, who much prefers to go by her initials J.T., is a published poet, a poetry professor, and a single, middle-aged woman who has never been married. She lives an isolated life, separate from those she lives amongst, sensing that there is something missing in her life but drinking too much to focus on what that is. It’s not that she’s a full-time alcoholic; it’s just that in those hours when she should be analyzing her life, she’s analyzing a glass of wine.
One night out of curiosity, she hits the Internet and types in “adoption.” Never having children, she wonders if it’s too late for someone who is almost forty-five to give the whole motherhood thing a go. The search engine brings up link after link about adopting pets, rather than children, and she finds herself staring into a pair of sad brown eyes. Almost before she knows what she’s doing, she has called the number, arranged a meeting, and is on her way to collect Dog. That’s his name: Dog.
Well, that won’t do for a minute, and she changes that name to Phillip, almost immediately shortened to Phil. She doesn’t realize it at the time but she sub-consciously gave the dog the same name as an ex-boyfriend. Suddenly her life is consumed with this dog, and she’s not sure whether that’s good or bad. She’s sleeping better at night, she’s finding ways to interact with the outside world in ways she never did before, she’s finding a purpose beyond school and poetry, and she’s even working on the drinking problem. All this because a small furry animal came into her life.
I do put forth the warning that there is a small amount of language, most of it used conversationally. You can skip page 85 if you would like to avoid an “F” word, the only one used, and it’s in a quote from a line of poetry. On page 59 and from pages 116-126, she’s mulling over her lack of a love life, and it’s not graphic at all, but if you would prefer to skip it, there are the page numbers.
I did enjoy this novel. It showed me how important it is that we have someone else to think about, that serving someone more helpless than we are can bring us out of our own self-absorbedness, and how having just one true love in your life, be they furry or human, can make all the difference in the world.
(This book was published in 2005 by MacAdam/Cage.)
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