Pretzel, Houdini & Olive: Essays On the Dogs of My Life

(Paperback)

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Told from the perspective of a self-identified "crazy dog lady," these eleven interconnected essays follow one woman's relations with five different dogs. Together, they travel over terrain spanning her husband's battle with cancer, his death, her grieving process, and her rejoining the living as her dogs lead her forward from the other end of their leashes. Alongside her personal story, she considers such cultural issues as Americans' unhealthy relationships with the natural world, ageism across species, Third World poverty and First World privilege, hoarding, and the meaning of happiness. This is not a sentimental "who-rescued-whom" book about the healing power of animals. Instead, it explores one representative human's relationships with dogs, with all their joys but also their frustrations, neuroses, and downright craziness.

Reviews

"In an intoxicating mix of myth and story, natural history, science, and memoir, Thompson cooks up a masterful exploration of the human bond with dogs. Rolling in the wake of unspeakable grief after the loss of her partner to cancer, she turns to one of the other constants in her lifethe love of a good dog or a dumb dog or, really, almost any dog because the operative word there is 'love,' that unconditional wet-nosed bodily kind of love that sustains us and gets Thompson out of bed every morning, the love that keeps her mind moving and keeps her alive as she writes her way out of the deep holes left by loss. Required reading for anyone who has lost someone and loved a dogwhich is nearly everyone."Steven Church, author ofIm Just Getting to the Disturbing Part: On Work, Fear, and Fatherhood

"Woven through these evocative memoir essays are the dogs of grief and joyand of Kolkata. Street dogs and spirit dogs. Rescue dogs that we hope might rescue us. Dogs of myth and history. Daily dogs whose fur we can touch. After the loss of her partner, Rajiv, Debby Thompson found herself unprepared for what she calls 'the animal part of loss,' the way 'skin cries' for contact. In these storiesgritty, visionary, and heartbreakingare the dogs of this world, the dogs of life, the dogs of now and of now-lets-go!"VeronicaPatterson, author ofSudden White Fan

"Deborah Thompsons collection of dog stories leaps past the honed edge of the twenty-first-century self-absorbency to bring home the experience of simply existing in a warm, earthbound, sense-luscious, skin-wrapped body. Thompson appeases the grief of losing a husband to cancer with tending to the simple physical needs of her dogs. Walking, peeing, shitting, sniffing, humping, licking . . . her experiences with her dogs filter out the lumpy complications and sharpen the 'now' of existing with loss. Yet this collection of stories doesnt trivialize existence with a pat on the furry head of canine cuteness. The author doesnt explain how humans and dogs do what they do or why they do so. Instead, she winds us through the dark alleys of her life with those warm, unquestioning companions at her side. These stories do not glide along the surfaceof complications that grease the surface of our lives. They do not complain and they do not explain. Rather, they show how the hard edges of life can be softened by warmth, loyalty, and a good dog."Florencia Ramirez, author ofEat Less Water

Author Bio

Deborah Thompson is a professor of English at Colorado State University, where she teaches literary criticism and creative nonfiction. A Pushcart Prize winner, she has published personal essays in journals including the Missouri Review, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Passages North, Briar Cliff, Upstreet, the Kenyon Review (online), McSweeneys Internet Tendency, and others. Contest wins include the Missouri Reviews 2008 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors Prize in creative nonfiction and the 2010 Iowa Review contest in the nonfiction category. She lives with her dogs in Fort Collins, Colorado.