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The Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance


Title The Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance
Writer Jane Vandenburgh (Author)
Date 2025-07-10 01:31:55
Type pdf epub mobi doc fb2 audiobook kindle djvu ibooks
Link Listen Read

Desciption

The author calls this "a true romance," saying, it's the part of her personal history she, being superstitious, was almost afraid to write. She'd grown up accustomed to bad luck, but had – by accident or miracle – survived her own circumstances: being orphaned, her own misspent youth, the chaos of a broken marriage. She'd more than survived, she'd even triumphed and had awakened into a kind of charmed splendor to find herself living in a white marble city with storybook castles, knowing famous people, being invited to the White House to listen to her husband discuss Yeats with the President of the United States, as Bill Clinton drinks Diet Coke from the can.And into this fabled chapter of the writer's life comes the perfect dog, an English Springer Spaniel named Whistler who arrives not only the family pet, but as her private symbol of triumph over all that age–old sadness. She wants to ignore it but can't help but see that their perfect pup is something of a neurotic mess, snarling at manhole covers, barking at children, growling at people in wheelchairs. The writer herself is not seemingly done with the anxieties born of all that early trauma and loss, and she begins to worry obsessively about losing this difficult dog, the one they so love. Wrrrrnnnggdgggg! she begins to dream. Wrrrrrnnnnng dgggg! Read more


Review

I have been a fan of Jane Vandenburgh, both the writer and the person, for two decades. Yes, this is a book about her dog -- about two dogs really, one lost and one found. But on a larger level it is about friendship and home and love and dislocation and attachment. What makes a home? Vandenburgh leaves one coast that has always been home (for many things, both good and bad happened in California) to find herself completely disoriented in a new place, Washington, DC -- as foreign to her as Croatia. She finds a new home, or at least a weekend home, in Berkeley Springs West Virginia, only to find that, despite the symmetry of its name to her hometown of Berkeley, California, it, too, is a foreign, cruel place.Ultimately, she comes back to California. This is not giving away the plot since-- as always with her novels and books-- the delight is in the journey. In this book she turns the concept of home over and over. She picks up her Magic Eight ball and finds a different answer each time. Home is where you're from. Where there are people live who love you. Where there are plu's (people like us). Where your children are. Where you can work without going crazy. Where you have friends. Where your dogs are safe, by your side.Go on Vandenburgh's journey with Thiebaud and Whistler.

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