Cecil Aldin

Just recently I found out about two great artists. One is Cecil Aldin (1870-1935) a visual chronicler of British countryside whose dog portraits became very famous and highly collectible. A very nice biography of Aldin can be found here.

Some of Aldin's more popular titles are still in print and I got "The Rascal: Episodes in the Life of a Bulldog Pup", "A Dog Day" and "Puppy Dogs' Tales". Also in print is the classic "Sleeping Partners" in which Aldin depicts his two dogs (an Irish Wolfhound named Micky and a Bull Terrier called Cracker) attempting to share a small sofa in positions of (seemingly) increasing discomfort.

Anyone who loves dogs and illustration will surely adore these small books. Cecil Aldin is particularly adept at portraying the puppy teens, that time, which in some dogs seems to go on forever, (yes, I'm talking to you Dixie) when every waking minute seems to be spent contemplating some deed that will have have you mop/ baby wipes /dog shampo in hand in no time.

His drawings of Sealyham Terriers are my absolute favourite. There aren't any on these three books but there are some prints available online if a little on the expensive side. An adorable breed - how incredible to think they are endangered.

Stephen Budiansky "The Truth About Dogs"

I didn’t enjoy Stephen Budiansky’s book on dogs as much as I did his cat one. Maybe, as Laura Miller refers in a scathing dog and cat book review, “while most human-dog bonds are fairly similar, there seems to be so much variety in cat owners' relationships to their pets -- every cat is a custom job”. But dog books somehow can never avoid the subject of “leadership” which is a concept that in animal relations, as in life, never fails to annoy me.

This is undoubtedly why my dogs are such brats (and why I was the worst substitute teacher in the world). I can’t tell people what to do, much less 10 year olds or dogs. I don’t get why they don’t do their own thing without constantly causing mayhem.

Anyway, back to “The Truth About Dogs”. The beginning was hilarious and highly promising. Like me, Budiansky has some qualms with the prevailing western cultural image of dogs: “unconditional love”? “best friend”?

“Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air-conditioning vent in the summer, they curl up in front of the fireplace in winter, they commit outrages upon our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates.”

So true.

Even though one passage is titled “Dogs aren’t wolves”, Budiansky actually spends most of the book using wolf behavior as a way to make sense of dog behavior. Most dog books, since Konrad Lorenz do this, so it didn’t feel very surprising. As in his cat book my favorite parts dealt with history (although there is little cultural history here; on that subject, the fascinating “Lost History of the Canine Race” is unsurpassable) and my least favorite with intelligent testing.

I did learn something, however: wimps make awful dog owners. If you are not willing to assert dominance (and occasionally, physical dominance) over your dog, she will probably develop all sorts of undesirable behaviors not to mention outright aggression.

So here I was, thinking what a coincidence it is that I always end up with super independent, stubborn dogs when all along, I’m the problem in the relationship (I also fall in another dangerous category according to Budiansky: owners who desperately want their dogs to love them)…

It might sound as if I’m being ironic, but it was actually pretty insightful, not to mention the first time I read about it in such unapologetic terms (and to give credit where it is due, my husband had already alluded to my general disinclination to discipline as a problem).

All around, a good dog book for those who haven’t read too many already. I’m reading his book on horses now (both of these a kind heads-up from Jeane at “DogEar Diary” so stay tuned…

Robert Rodi "Dogged Pursuit"

One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Robert Rodi’s “Dogged Pursuit: My Year of Competing Dusty, the World’s Least Likely Agility Dog” is a must for any dog lover, or anyone looking for a hilarious read.

It gives a fascinating insider’s view of the sport of canine agility, but the real gem is Rodi’s self-deprecating, urbanite tone. Somewhere between feeling a little superior and more sophisticated than the average dog-handler and suffering from a social inadequacy that leaves him both craving his peers friendship while being generally incapable of blending in with the guys, Rodi is the perfect guide for the close-knit, somewhat intense world of competitive agility.

“Dogged Pursuit” is also about taking a great big bite of humble pie. You see, the author had already been around the agility block with a Shetland Sheepdog who took little training to fly through the hoops (and other obstacles). But Dusty, a Sheltie rescue, comes with a lot of baggage and a host of anxieties – turning him into a champion, it turns out, is not the breezy walk Rodi was anticipating. There is a lot frustration, a lot of doubt (does Dusty even enjoy agility? – segway into a touching consultation with an animal psychic), which leads the author into discovering the joys of competition that extend beyond taking a ribbon home.

A lot of great characters, a touching story of bonding with a difficult pet, a rhythm that makes for compelling reading and some seriously laugh-out-loud episodes. I can’t imagine anyone not getting a kick out of this book.

Dogs & Cats in their Gardens

By Page Dickey

Lovely photography books that explore the place of cats and dogs in our gardens. Well, not "our" gardens - these are rather on the grand side...

There is a little text with each entry that introduces gardeners, pets and describes the landscape. I couldn't help noticing that the majority of cats arrived as strays or were adopted as kittens while most dog were bought purebreds...how fortunate for the kitties!

If there is such a thing as reincarnation I would not mind coming back as one of these lucky cats or dogs!

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas - Dogs and Cats

"The Hidden Lives of Dogs"
"The Social Lives of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company"
"The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and their Culture"

Eight years separate Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ “The Hidden Lives of Dogs” and “The Social Lives of Dogs”. As far as dog-keeping in the western world is concerned, it’s been almost a life-time.

But don’t take my word for it. Scroll down some of the violent costumer reviews for “Hidden Lives” at amazon.com, of which three sample titles are “Very, Very Bad, Disappointing, and disgusting”; “Unbelievable nonsense”; “Most Horrendous Dog Book I Have Ever Read”. Just makes you want to read the thing, don’t it?

So what has gotten these dog-lovers in a tizzy you ask? Well, first you must know that Marshall Thomas’ is an anthropologist, and unfortunately she spent her formative years accompanying her parents in expeditions in South Africa (I say unfortunately because I believe anthropology is detrimental to the healthy development of young people – or maybe I have a chip in my shoulder caused by a certain useless degree, you decide).

When it comes to observing dogs (or cats, or deer) she looks at them as an anthropologist would, trying to figure out communication cues, the importance of kinship ties, social hierarchy, what is desired and accepted by the group and what is condemned.

If nothing else, it definitely puts dogs in a different perspective. Marshall Thomas is interested in observing dogs being dogs. That, of course is not acceptable to many modern dog-keepers. It involves no training whatsoever (as she so rightly points out, when you have a pack of dogs they train any newcomers) and very little restraint, either physical (most of the time the dogs walk themselves or are walked without leashes; when the author moves to rural Virginia, they have permanent access outside) or reproductive (the majority of females was allowed to breed at least once, with a dog of their choice, before being spayed later in life).

Training, leashes and neutering are the holy trinity of owning a dog these days. And of course, neutering and spaying are a necessity considering the numbers of strays. But before getting more hysterical than Adolf at the nightly book burning séance, the folks might have noticed that “The Hidden Lives of Dogs” was first published in 1993 and that all the canine protagonists were dead or in their senior years. This means the events related date back fifteen years, starting in the late seventies. Was it really so morally condemned then to allow your dog to walk himself and have a couple of litters? Don’t think so.

Training is the altar at which dog-owners must worship these days, so when Marshall Thomas’ speaks of a loved dog as “a dog who thought for himself, a dog who wasn’t brainwashed by excessive training” I have no doubt that many contemporary readers were shocked. But isn’t it a fact that a lot of training is behavior modification for traits that make perfect sense for dogs but that we want to eradicate for our, mostly urban, convenience? Barking, eating the inedible, rolling in the stinky, pulling the leash, chasing tail, upset at being imprisoned 12 hours a day?

I for one always found highly trained dogs slightly upsetting – I watched some during a brief stint through obedience school and without being able to put into words what exactly bothered me, only wished my own Jessie would never be that obedient (needn’t have worried really). Now I think those dogs lack something in the lines of dignity. “Dogs are slaves” Thomas’ states more than once, and that is, perhaps, the bottom-line. Still, they don’t have to be circus performers. Spartacus was a slave, right? (Funnily enough, Thomas’s is a circus supporter as she states in “The Tribe of Tiger”)

There is some strong imagery in “Hidden Lives”, the kind you won’t find in most present day dog books. One female dog is raped by a neighbour dog (yes, dogs can be rapists too) and her babies are killed by a more dominant female in the household who also had newborns at the time. It’s strong stuff you don’t usually find in dog books unless you go back to Lorenz’s 1949 “Man Meets Dog” (of whom Thomas’ draws greatly in regards to the wolf-dog theories).

It’s the kind of stuff that happens when you have a group of unaltered dogs, living together with a small degree of freedom. And it’s very interesting. No-one who reads the whole thing can doubt how much Thomas’ loves her dogs and watches out for them, providing food, shelter, veterinary care, canine companionship and liberty.

Written in 2001 “The Social Lives of Dogs” takes on the sign of the times. As the book begins there are only a few of the original husky and dingo pack remaining. The author finds a stray that, although young, is not readily accepted by the others. As such, Sundog, is more or less obliged to take the author and her husband as his “pack” companions. As so often seems the case, Sundog’s arrival sparks a cycle of pet adoption and soon a new, home-based canine (and feline) group is established (or several tiny groups, actually). Ruby a purebred (and neurotic) Belgian shepherd; Pearl an Australian shepherd-mix “inherited” from Thomas’ son; Ruby, a stray and Sheilah, a though little street dog, plus an assortment of cats. Their arrival, the way in which they carve their niche, choose their friends, enemies and evolve into their singular personalities is the fascinating subject of “Social Lives”.

Don’t worry, this time around all females were duly spayed and Thomas was living in rural area (although not completely safe as an awful accident will prove).

With “The Tribe of Tiger” I expected a feline counterpoint to the dog stories of “Social Lives”. Sadly it’s not what I got at all. Sure, there were some anecdotes about the household cats (yes, they were allowed to roam the country-side, folks and there is also some [gasp] kitten murder), but it’s mostly about the evolutionary history of cats and a lot of chapters about the author’s experiences with lions in South Africa. I kept thinking there would be more about cats up ahead, so kept reading faster… There are some fascinating accounts but…few small cats.

Thomas’ also spent a lot of time with circus big cat trainers as well as observing tigers and lions in zoos and came to the somewhat predictable conviction, that, all-circumstances being equal (meaning no cruelty involved) big cats seem much more happy, alert and engaged in a circus setting. I believe that is the same rationale that led to the creation of job training programs for prison inmates.

In conclusion? There is a lot of baloney (the word is strangely appropriate) in Thomas’ theorizing – especially in “Hidden Lives” she seem in thrall of the “huskies and other “primitive” dogs are closer to wolves” shtick – which is neither new nor very interesting, and on the whole “lion mystical bond with bushmen” thing (it’s probably true, but once again it feels overdone) in “The Tribe of Tiger”.

As with most anthropologists she is at her best when she drops the theories and just observes with a keen eye and fresh mind. That she is an amazing watcher I have no doubt, and she witnesses many small (and not so small) signs that we usually miss even sharing our daily lives with cats and dogs. For that reason, especially the dog books are wonderful, and dog-lovers should not keep away because of modern changes in what constitutes responsible dog-ownership. (Did I mention she thinks Americans are “dog-fascists”? Think that might have something to do with the hate?)

Mary Elizabeth Thurston "The Lost History of the Canine Race"

“The Lost History of the Canine Race: Our 15,000-Year Love Affair with Dogs” is a must-read for every dog lover. But anyone interested in knowing more about our complex historical relation with the creature that, for good and bad, has been our closest companion will find a lot of information in this book.

This large volume is put together like the reference book it deserves to be. It is filled with information and illustrated throughout with black and white photographs and also has a section of colour reproductions. It’s the kind of book you keep going back to, in order to check a fact, re-read a passage, or just look at the pictures.

Mary Elizabeth Thurston starts at the very beginning taking a look at currently held theories on the domestication of the wolf (Asia, is now the believed spot for the first domestication, and all dogs are supposedly descended from only a few domesticated individuals). She then takes a look at archaeological finds to see what they reveal (or not) about mankind’s growing proximity with the dog. Interestingly enough, European cave painting so lavish in portraying prey animals hardly ever features dogs, who were by then almost certainly a feature of human groups.

The author then provides fascinating and learned essays on the place of dogs in Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations, drawing from archaeological finds, art, texts and religion. She also explains that, only recently, has zooarchaeology been gaining acceptance in museums and universities. For most of the twentieth century archaeological finds pertaining to animals were regularly discarded by archaeologists themselves as well as museums – dog and cat remains along with objects related to their keeping were not seen as important. Animal mummies (and animal cemeteries) for instance, were so numerous in Egypt that they were routinely destroyed or sold as curios. Unimaginable amounts of information were lost in this way and by the discarding of animal bones found in Neolithic and Palaeolithic digs.

Following chapters analyse dog culture in Medieval and Renaissance epochs. Some very interesting sub-chapters deal with the use of dogs as weapons of terror by the Spanish Conquistadores in their colonies, the belief in supernatural dogs (the Inquisition popularizing the relationship between black dogs and the Devil) but also favoured royal pets in European courts.

The object of royal indulgence, dogs became the status symbol for anyone who could afford them. Ironically, as populations became increasingly urban, the dog, so often maligned as the carrier of disease and bad spirits, endured only as a fearless, tireless and uncomplaining guardian of flocks, property and hunting companion, slowly turned into the loved pet we know today.

It was in this context that “the fancy” was born. Breeders, shows and clubs were mostly the product of the XIX century and it is surely not a coincidence that DNA testing has proved that the majority of dog breeds were “born” around this time by extensive artificial selection at the hands of humans. In this period breeders began to enhance certain physical traits and not always with a goal other than esthetical preference and the belief that a “purebred” dog (in other words a dog created by human intervention) is superior to a “random-bred” dog (a mutt, by other words).

It is fascinating to think that our “modern” relationship with dogs is, in fact, so recent! Of course, as soon as dogs became pets, “rare” and “exotic” breeds become the holy grail of cosmopolitan trendsetters. One of the first dog “fevers” was caused by the tiny Pekingese. Probably descended from the Roman Era Maltese, only the royal Chinese family was allowed to own and breed them. And breed they did, creating (mostly in the late XIX century) the short-legged, pug-nosed, hairball we know today (western breeders would further “improve” the breed within an inch of its life). When British and French troops stormed the Summer Palace in 1860 during the Opium Wars, they came upon these little “freaks”, who could have easily slipped into oblivion, where it not the fact that a British ship captain offered one to Queen Victoria. The Peke had been made. In fact, modern Pekes are descended from these Chinese refugees (just as modern Shar-Pei persecuted by the Communist regime were also “saved” by westerners), a couple of males and a hand-full of females.

The first societies for the protection of animals, the use of dogs in wars, the place of the dog in Native American culture, the rise of modern dog breeds, dog laws, commercial dog food and accessories and dog cemeteries are all tackled in this volume. It overflows information, all of it fascinating for dog people and at 300 pages it made wish it was double the size. An absolute treat.

Ella Maillart "Ti-Puss" & Sandor Marai "Un Chien de Charactère"

Neither Ella Maillart’s “Ti-Puss” nor Sandor Marai’s “Un Chien de Charactère” are currently in print in English. This, I think, is more than a coincidence – the English-speaking world being as ravenous for pet tales as it is nowadays.

Ah, you ask: But are these uplifting tales, stories of overcoming adversity, disabilities, abandonment and bad behavior? Well, not really and that might have something to do with it.

For in her delightful tale of life in India with a cat, Maillart lets Ti-Puss Minou run free, hunt and breed as she will (drowning or wringing the necks of at least half the littermates), takes her for walks in which the cat following her is always an uncertainty, travels in packed trains with her and generally allows her to be a semi-feral animal.

World traveler Ella Maillart lived in India for five years (1940-45) in order to study Hindu philosophy – however, following the Indian guru’s teachings on detachment became doubly difficult for the author when she began sharing her life with an animal that absolutely fascinated her. She couldn’t help but want to possess her and yet it was Minou’s wild nature that enchanted her.

Now, taking in consideration some hateful comments I’ve seen on sites directed at cat-owners who so much as allow a whisker outside the house, I can’t imagine “Ti-Puss” going down too well with Americans, not to mention the kitten-killing (but remember, this was the forties and Maillart actually tried to get someone to spay Ti-Puss, which proved impossible).

I enjoyed this book that brought to mind Konrad Lorenz’s description of the happiness he felt with the two cats that allowed him to accompany their forest strolls in “Man Meets Dog”. Cats are closer to wild animals than dogs, of course, and therefore seem to elicit in their chosen humans a surprised thankfulness: “Me, really?! You’ll allow me to feed you, gaze upon you and only occasionally scratch me? Why, I can’t thank you enough!”

Dogs can be wild too, though, as the protagonists of “Un Chien de Charactère” discover. Sandor Marai tells of a young, childless couple living in Budapest in the years after World War I. The husband decides to surprise the wife with a puppy for Christmas. The puppy, supposedly a Puli (a woolly Hungarian sheep guarding breed), is actually a much larger, mix breed of extremely bad character. Spoiled rotten, he soon starts biting everyone in the household. In those darker times, before the Dog Whisperer’s wisdom was available, the couple ends up deciding to send the dog away.

There is actually a common theme in both “Ti-Puss” and “Un Chien…”: both Maillart and Marai’s protagonist experience life with a more docile, pliable pet (Maillart with a daughter of Ti-Puss she gives away and the hero of “Un Chien…” with a polite lap-dog the couple gets after Tchoutoura). Yet both pine for the wild, independent cat or dog which brought so much trouble. This would please Lorenz immensely, he who always preferred his dogs “wolf-like” instead of docile.

Harsh as the destinies of Ti-Puss the cat and Tchoutoura the dog might seem, these stories feel real and are illustrative of sharing life with animals: there is often deep frustration, sadness and anger involved in keeping pets and that fact usually tends to get overlooked in feel-good books that portray animals as fragile beings who beg for our protection and spend the rest of their lives repaying our good intentions with unconditional love and good behavior.

In a culture that discards pets so easily for being animals (chewing, scratching, biting, barking, marking, etc) yet hails them as polite, cute, fashion accessories, these books are highly refreshing.

Jon Katz - Izzy and Lenore

Jon Katz’s “Izzy and Lenore” was not exactly the fun, doggy lit romp I was anticipating. I got more than I bargained for with this one: it’s not just tear-inducing, it’s enervating.

It touches a lot of spots most of us (and I’m definitely in the group) would rather leave in the dark until we’re absolutely forced to confront them: depression, death, loneliness, solidarity and the roles our dogs play in the middle of the confusion that is a well-meaning human being.

Certain animals seem to manifest in our lives at key-junctions: for Katz it was a border collie rescue, named Izzy, so magically attuned to the needs of humans he pushed the author into fulfilling his wish of becoming a hospice volunteer – with a canine aide.

The dying patients that Izzy visited make up for most of the moving chapters in “Izzy and Lenore”. They are mostly elderly, but there is a middle aged man and a little boy. Interestingly, there is only one truly distressing case – a man who has yet, along with his family, to accept that these are his last days. For all the others, acceptance, seems to have brought about a merciful serenity.

Not all dogs are as wonderfully perceptive as Izzy, but they fulfill equally important roles in our everyday lives: as Katz plunges into depression he decides to self-medicate with the addition of a black lab puppy to his menagerie.

It’s not easy to give an opinion on “Izzy and Lenore” not having read any of the author’s previous best-sellers – and it’s even harder because I genuinely thought this would be a happy-go-lucky, shelter-to-sofa, kind of story and well, it wasn’t. It was hard to read at times but absolutely amazing and moving.

I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone – it certainly gave me the blues.

Patrick McDonnell - Mutts Shelter Stories

I love the Mutts series!
This book takes Mutts strips (some previously published)and adds photographs of adopted pets and short testimonials by their forever families. Lovely, snuggly and christmasy.

Animal Books

Animal books are my guilty pleasure.

Not in the sense of the online definition of “something one considers pleasurable despite it being mainly received negatively or looked down on by a majority of society” but more in the sense that I enjoy reading (most) of them so much that it triggers a sense of guilty (yes, catholic education).



“All My Patients are Under the Bed – memoirs of a cat doctor” is a special book. It’s more than a glimpse into the practice of a veterinarian, for which a contemporary look is best achieved by reading “Tell Me Where it Hurts” by Dr Nick Trout, and more of an historical glimpse at how much veterinarian medicine changed in the last century.

Dr Louis Camuti started practicing in 1921 and as he explains, at that time horses were by far the main fare of the veterinarian. Cars would of course, radically alter the picture in the following years. At first some vets wouldn’t even stoop so low as to treat a domestic cat or dog! After the II World War the urban dweller’s relationship with animals (and vets) changed even further, especially in New York City – women took to the workplace and pets were the only ones home in many households. Since cats are notorious bad patients anyway, Dr Camuti slowly became an itinerant doctor – starting his workday at about 4 pm and ending it no sooner than 2 or 3 am, what with NY parking and traffic being what it is.

The book makes for compulsive reading, filled with humorous encounters with cats and their owners of which Camuti states “some are more normal than others”.



I should state right now that I am a closet cat lover – closeted because, I have two dogs, one of which positively hates kitties. This online test tells me I’m a cat person – but really the only thing these tests do, is tell you whether you are an introvert or extrovert and then, operate on the (false, to my mind) assumption that cat = calm, quiet and dog=loud, boisterous. As if cats and dogs didn’t show a range of personalities. At least two introverted girls you might have heard of enjoyed the company of large, not very polite dogs: Emily Bronte and her mastiff, Keeper and Emily Dickinson and her Newfoundland, Carlo. Their relationship with dogs and those of Woolf, Barrett Browning and Wharton are analyzed in Maureen Adams “Shaggy Muses”.

For more on personality and dog breeds, check out Stanley Coren’s “Why We Love the Dogs We Do – how to find the dog that matches your personality”. It features the stories of Steinbeck, Eugene O’Neill, Emily Bronte, Nixon, James Stewart, Byron and others along with their canine companions. It includes a personality test and is just so fun I keep going back to it – it is my best-thumbed dog book and it even features a chapter on “Cat People”, although a not very kind one – it portrays cat lovers as aloof, unemotional and cold.

Of “Woman’s Best Friend – Women writers on the dogs in their lives” and “Cat Women – Female writers and their feline friends” I think I enjoyed Cat Women better – but part of it is just the curiosity of knowing how the other half lives, because they are both filled with great stories.

Life: the wonderful, the schmaltzy

"Three Dog Life" - Abigail Thomas

"The Good Life" - Jay McInerney

Sometimes (most of the time, for me) it’s more difficult to write about a good book than about a bad one. I’m more articulate in loath than in awe. So, here it goes:

Abigail Thomas’s book is a series of mini chronicles documenting the accident which left her husband without any short-term memory and unable to function autonomously.
One night, walking Harry (the dog the author had insisted on getting), Richard ran after him through oncoming traffic when the leash broke, and was run over.

Instead of widowhood, Thomas was left to confront a different, less discussed purgatory: she had to arrange the daily life and care of a loved one who, though present in body was, if not completely gone, utterly transformed.

That Thomas never blamed Harry the beagle, and adopted two other dogs in the following years, will probably not seem very far-fetched to other dog owners. That she is able to write without a hint of cheap sentiment and yet so vividly portray her ordeal is what truly brought me to tears – once when I read the ending, and a second time, when I told it to my mother.

McInerney’s book is the complete opposite: it reeks of cheap sentiment, schmaltz and soap-operism and the 9/11 back-drop made it even more unbearable. I was surprised at how much I hated it, since I read “Bright Lights, Big City” when I was 11 years old and thoroughly enjoyed it. I guess I grew up in the subsequent 19 years, whereas McInerney is confined to being for ever an increasingly juvenile writer. However, I also enjoyed his anthology of wine chronicles: sure, you could tell he was a pompous, indulgent (and indulged, by his circle of fawning fans), name-dropping idiot, but he was also funny. “The Good Life” started off by giving me a warm feeling inside, as it described the lives of wealthy and wealthier manhatanites – the continuous craving for more goods of superior quality, be they in the shape of real-estate, textiles or celebrity friends and events. I felt smug and superior until the story started going nowhere fast, while the characters failed to develop (until the end of the book I could never memorize their names, so indistinct where they from the supporting characters). These characters can’t take life’s no for an answer – as illustrated by Corrinne’s adamant pursuit of conception (finally achieved via younger sister’s eggs), and Luke’s acquisition of his socialite wife, Sasha. McInerney then tries to convince the reader that these two are transfixed by their chance encounter amid the rubble of a day-old 9/11. Fat chance of anyone believing these self-serving two are capable of a mature love affair – so the author gives a hand by providing them both(!) with philandering partners. One wouldn’t want to face New Yorkers with too much of a moral dilemma, after all. It’s all so damn convenient that Luke’s 14 year old harlot daughter – caught in the oral act by her father one day and overdosing on prescription drugs the next – is really just a sensitive girl who wants to live in rural Tennessee with her paternal grandmother and practice the family business of equine therapy. Turns out she was only engaging in casual sex and recreational drugs because she didn’t want to become a rich bitch like her doped-up mother. Sure, it makes sense…
Spoiler
In the end they decide - as their families brush each other at a Christmas rendition of “The Nut-Cracker” by the NY Ballet (pass the bucket)-, that their love is too pure to be spoiled by the ugliness of divorce and subsequent pain for the involved children. I couldn’t figure out why McInerney chickened out at this final bit of sentimentality – making his leading characters walk off into the sunset – after all, he had already commited the worst of novelistic faults – boring the reader to tears.

Lazy doesn't even begin to cover it...

...but only when it comes to updating this blog...
Here's what I've read since the latest entry (chronologically):

A Hedonist In The Cellar - Jay McInerney

The Island Of Lost Maps - Miles Harvey

Birth: A History - Tina Cassidy

Hotel California - Barney Hoskyns

Haight-Ashbury: A History - Charles Perry

Borges e os Orangutangos - Erico Veríssimo

Bartleby & Co - Enrique Vila-Matas

The Paper House - Carlos Maria Domínguez

The Romanovs And Mr Gibbs - Frances Welch

The Dead Beat and the perverse pleasures of obituaries - Marilyn Johnson

A Gente Se Acostuma A Tudo - João Ubaldo Ribeiro

With Borges - Alberto Manguel

Pilgrim - Timothy Findley

Old School - Tobias Wolf

A Mother's World: Journeys of the heart - Ed. M. Bond & P. Michael

Great Dream of Heaven - Sam Shepard

New Yorkers - Cathleen Schine

It's A Dog's World: True stories of travel with man's best driend - Ed. C. Hunsicker & M.Goodavage

The Blue Jay's Dance - Louise Erdrich

Magic Bus: On the hippie trail from Istambul to India - Rory MacLean

Tales From The Cash Register

Eating The Cheshire Cat - Helen Ellis

Biodegradable Soap - Amy Ephrom

Bee Season - Myla Golberg

Life Studies - Susan Vreeland

Love Is A Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield

The Summer He Dindn't Die - Jim Harrison

One Sunday Morning - Amy Ephrom

To See Every Bird On Earth - Dan Koepppel

The Cat Who Came In From The Cold

Out Of Your Townie Mind - Richard Craze

The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon - Richard Zimmerman

Child Free And Loving It! - Nicki Defago

Families Of Two: Interviews with happily married couples without children by choice - Laura Carroll

My favorite reads are highlighted
For southern humour choose "Eating The Cheshire Cat"
For New York sophistication and romance, "New Yorkers"
"Old School" is the perfect, boarding school themed, fall book
I'm still reeling from "Pilgrim" - amazingly complex, learned, imaginative, surreal, athmospheric, hypnotic, detailed. This one is the gem of the list...
"Birth" and "Families" are pretty specific but I think most people can enjoy them: the first is a keeper for the honest (and therefore, sometimes gory) history of what women have endured (there's just no other way to put it) over milenia in both pregnancy and labor."Families" should be required reading for anyone thinking of starting a family - in fact, they both should.
"Life Studies" is a collection of short stories that are art-themed, but where the protagonists are always on the fringe of the production itself: a painter's mistress, widow or daughter, a woman who chooses to model naked for an art class, etc. Divided into eras starting with mostly impressionistic artists I was partial to last stories in the book, set in contemporary times.
I have been wanting to read Harrison for a while and "The Summer..." was lot better than I imagined.