These are the last days of autumn, and having a day off on the book tour, I like to climb up the hill and see the Farm in the last days of autumn. It is a beautiful place suffused with the spirit, struggle, history and trials of life, love, farming and loss. It is not a perfect place, but it is a special place and it lifts my spirit to simple be here.
I remember that hot and sticky day when I carried Orson’s body up the hill and buried it there. Rose was the only other creature who was with me and she sniffed the body, sniffed the grave and went and collected the sheep. Every once in awhile, I see her running up there and today when I went up to take a photo of the stone marker for my grieving book, Rose came up with me, and I was surprised to see her lie down next to Orson’s grave and sit there for the longest time.
Dogs are blank canvasses, and we often write our stories on them, but I have to be honest and say I can’t imagine what was transpiring between Rose and the grave, or Orson’s spirit. Rose was with Orson every day of her life until he died. Rose doesn’t get close to animals, at least not in the way I can see, but watching her up there, I stood silently and sensed some of the magic of animals and dogs, some of the mystery, the part I can’t see, a place I can’t go.
I can’t imagine what she was thinking or doing, and will be the first to admit that. I love animals for that mystery, the part of them that always has been and always will be beyond our ability to see or know, the part we can’t get to, yell at, cuddle, exploit, corrupt or anthropormorphisize. The part that is theirs. I saw that magic this afternoon, I think.
More than anything else, what draws me to writing about animals is that they mirror society so much, and tell us so much about what we feel.
I have been having fun on my blog and Facebook, writing about a vibrant part of publishing, tough dog redemption stories that take breeds like Pit Bulls (and dogs like Frieda) and offer up uplifting stories about their struggles and return to life. These books are hot, and some of them are very good.
Any writer who says he or she doesn’t check the Amazon numbers is perhaps stretching the truth, and I have also noticed another publishing trend, the cute dog names – “Pukka” and “Oogie” that are outselling me, often by wide margins. I definitely pay attention to these things, and have stopped pretending that I don’t.
I joked on the blog that I needed to give my dogs’ cuter names to compete, and we had a good time of it, although I was astonished at the number of people who thought I was serious.
There is a serious part to the discussion, and that is that literature follows, and doesn’t often lead. I think Americans are playing out some of their best instincts – love, forgiveness, loyalty, empathy – on animals, even as those traits vanish from politics and the workplace.
There are many different approaches to writing about dogs. I try hard to be faithful to what I believe is the true nature of dogs, as other writers celebrate different things. I focus much of my writing on working dogs, sometimes but not necessarily rescue dogs. And especially, I am drawn to the emotional connection that increasing binds dogs and people to one another.
The rise of the Pit Bull books is compelling, and it is inevitable that good writers would focus on this passionate subculture in the animal spectrum – Pit Bulls are among the most exploited and mistreated creatures in the animal world, used by drug dealers, dog-fighters to frighten or fend off the outside world. And they have some of the most impassioned guardians and defenders.
The rescue and rehabilitation of these animals makes powerful read, and even though he has an odd name, “Oogie’s” story “Oogie: The Dog Only A Family Could Love,” is an affirmation of the empathy and love and patience that seems to sometimes be vanishing from the outside world. “Rose In A Storm” is a very different kind of story, focusing on the interior life and mind of a dog, not on issues of redemption and resurrection, also powerful religious themes.
These stories, I have to confess are not close to my world (at least, not until Frieda). I’m not sure I have what it takes to protect them from the world. But the “Oogie” phenomenon speaks to the different ways writers approach dogs, and the things they represent. That’s what literature is supposed to do, I think, and even if I love joking about names, I also see the interesting – even serious – side to it.
It makes me think that one day I would like to write about Frieda, not so much because Maria and I helped bring her back to life, but because she did the same for us. And that, I think, is what binds the dog books together.
October 27, 2020 – Home at the farm. Off Thursday to Framingham, for interviews and a signing/reading at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble. Maria is coming and we will be selling Family Farm notecards as well as books. We sold eight packs in Hadley last night.
“Rose In A Storm” is the first book I’ve ever written that people described as one of the best books they’ve ever read, or that they simple could not put down. Or that was “magical” and made them cry and feel good about it. That’s a big deal and it affects my identify, as a person and as a writer. I’ve struggled with Identity my whole life, at times being called a sissy, an oddball, destructive, crazy, irresponsible, selfish and incompetent. Some elements of truth to them all at times.
Perhaps because of the novel, this is the most meaningful book tour I’ve ever been on. Maria’s presence helps, but so do the very different kinds of questions I’m getting, penetrating and thoughtful. In Hadley yesterday (I very much enjoyed my Hadley Experiment), a woman at Odyssey Books asked me where I had gotten my sense of “detachment” in writing about animals, acknowledging love for them but staying at a distance from it. A good question. I had to think about it.
First off I was a police reporter in Philadelphia, Atlantic City and Washington, D.C. and seeing dead and mangled bodies regularly can detach you from life in a hurry, and teach you how to do it. I was a political writer after that, and that can detach one even more.
I told the woman that I didn’t write as a dog or animal lover, that was not my perspective. I am not writing as an advocate for dogs, not interested in campaigning for no-kill shelters (en ephemeral idea if there ever was one) or writing books about the animals in need of rescue. Nor do I see animals as cute or even heroic. I don’t think my dogs will spot cancer in me, nor do I think they will starve to death if I die. It seems quite selfish to me to want that or believe or glorify that idea. Those are political positions, not acts of literature, at least not usually.
Writers observe. They stand apart, always a bit separate from the things they are living and seeing. They try to make sense of those things, in their own lives and in the lives of others. And to capture what they sense and see. In so doing, if they are good and lucky, people will see their own lives and struggles in their work and take something of value.
This book tour is affecting my sense of identity, in ways that are disturbing and wonderful at the same time. In leaving Izzy home, I was liberating a part of myself, giving me permission to be a writer, not a transporter of appealing dogs to exploit them to sell books. It is a part of myself I’m happy to let go of, even though it was unconscious.
And in hearing questions like the one about detachment, I am forced to further stand back and see myself, as well as the things I’m writing about. Seeing myself in a different way, and a better way perhaps, what Identity is all about.
Back up Route 22 with a person I love to the farm that I love to do work that I love. How sweet is that?
“Rose In A Storm” is a turning point for me. Persevere. And don’t let anyone take your story away.
