Donna's Reviews > The Friend

Dino is a lot of dog. Thirty-four inches from shoulder to paw. A hundred and eighty pounds. Attached was a photo: the two of you, cheek to jowl, the massive head at first glance looking like a pony’s. Later you decided against the name Dino. He was too dignified for a name like that, you said. What did I think of Chance? Chauncy? Diego? Watson? Rolfe? Arlo? Alfie? Any of those names sounded fine to me. In the end you called him Apollo.

The main character of this book goes unnamed. She’s a single, middle-aged woman who has lived for many years in a tiny rent controlled apartment in Manhattan that doesn’t allow pets. Her best friend and mentor, who is also unnamed, has just passed away under tragic circumstances, and his third wife has contacted her. She wants her to take possession of his dog since the wife plans to travel extensively and doesn’t feel it’s fair to keep a Great Dane in a kennel. No one else will take the traumatized dog who is grief-stricken and comes with a troubled past, having been abandoned in the park where the mentor found it. The woman reluctantly agrees to care for Apollo, though as a temporary arrangement until another solution can be found since she will face eviction if she keeps him beyond a certain amount of time. Woman and dog get off to a rocky start as she deals with this giant in her closet-sized apartment, trying to both cheer and comfort him over his loss. But who is comforting whom?

Having your dog is like having a part of you here. Mostly he ignores me. He might as well live here alone. He makes eye contact at times, but instantly looks away again. His large hazel eyes are strikingly human; they remind me of yours.

What do dogs think when they see someone cry? Bred to be comforters, they comfort us. But how puzzling human unhappiness must be to them. We who can fill our dishes any time and with as much food as we like, who can go outside whenever we wish, and run free—we who have no master constantly needing to be pleased, or obeyed—WTF?

The friend who is most sympathetic about my situation calls to ask how I am. I tell him about trying music and massage to treat Apollo’s depression, and he asks if I’ve considered a therapist. I tell him I’m skeptical about pet shrinks, and he says, That’s not what I meant.

Will the woman keep Apollo and risk losing her apartment? And more importantly, will she risk losing her heart to him, same as she did with his master?

Before you decide if this book is for you, be warned it isn’t a cute story about a woman bonding with a dog, though that’s a part of it. It’s a serious study of grief and a study of life on both sides of it. There is plenty of humor, too, so no worries that this story is grim, even though a certain amount of heaviness breaks through the humor. And here’s another warning. Know that the dog’s part in the story is limited to about a third of it at most, much of his part in it told to the reader instead of it happening in real time, which surprised me from what I read in the summary. That’s because Apollo is mostly used as a launching pad for everything else the author, by way of the main character, wanted to discuss. There’s a lot in this book about the professions of teaching and writing, as well as discussions about literature, life, philosophy, and aging, and how important animals are in our lives and the nature of our relationship with them.

I believe the intensity of the pity you feel for an animal has to do with how it evokes pity for yourself. I believe we must all retain, throughout our whole lives, a powerful memory of those early moments of life, a time when we were as much animal as human, the overwhelming feelings of helplessness and vulnerability and mute fear, and the yearning for the protection that our instinct tells us is there, if we could just cry loudly enough. Innocence is something we humans pass through and leave behind, unable to return. But animals live and die in that state, and seeing innocence violated in the form of cruelty to a mere duck can seem like the most barbaric act in the world. I know people who are outraged by this sentiment, calling it cynical, misanthropic, and perverse. But I believe the day when we are no longer capable of feeling it will be a terrible day for every living being, that our downward slide into violence and barbarity will be only that much quicker.

And here’s something very interesting about how this story is told. All of these discussions take place within the main character’s head in a conversation aimed at her deceased friend, letting him know all that’s been happening since he’s been gone, while reminiscing about the past with him. This is not a gimmick and is done skillfully, the author avoiding a stifling internal monologue in favor of using a near dialogue that allows the reader to breathe inside the main character’s head. And it’s done for a specific reason I won’t spoil.

I enjoyed quite a bit of this book once I adjusted my expectations concerning it. The story, the writing, and all the musings of the main character were great. But I really wanted more of Apollo with his quiet dignity and his not so quiet indignity. And I wanted more of what he was up to as it was happening instead of being told about it after the fact. I feel the book would have been even better for it, while giving all those words a rest for just a bit.

So if you’re looking for a story with a lot of dog in it, too, you may not be satisfied with this book. But now that you know what to expect going in, this may not bother you. What there was of the dog was wonderful. And there were plenty of other interesting things to read about besides him in this book of hanging in, hanging on, and letting go.