9 Books Like Last Days of the Dog-Men

I read this book after I had already sent my manuscript to my agent and was surprised that the plot involved the main character unexpectedly caring for a dog after losing a loved one, as my novel does. Told from the point of view of a writing professor whose best friend and mentor has taken his own life, it traces the protagonist’s slow psychological unraveling as she tries to come to terms with both her friend’s death and the place he had held in her life. Adopting his dog takes her out of her ordinary routine in concrete ways and also grounds her and requires her to take part in the details of a new kind of daily life, even if reluctantly. 

Part of what I love about this book is the many ways in which it’s experimental. It combines fiction, autofiction, and essay writing. It contains blank pages. There… show more.

I just love this book, and frankly, everything Anne Tyler writes. Her stories are always driven by characters who are just delicious in their complexity.

Being drawn into these characters as their complex relationships evolve is what I find most satisfying about all of Tyler’s work. The characters are quirky, but believable; complicated, but lovable. Tyler is a master at character development. 

Kent Haruf wrote Our Souls at Night as he was dying. What happens in it? Not a lot. It’s much easier to write stories in which things blow up, plot devices creak, and an ending ties everything up neatly. This quiet, elegiac novel is not that.

Addie and Louis, elderly neighbors, begin sleeping together because the nights are long and they are lonely. Her young grandson, Jamie, visits. Louis gives him a catcher’s mitt and brings home a shelter dog, Bonnie. Their grown children interfere. Complications ensue. And there are no quotation marks to indicate dialogue.

Yet, here I am telling you to go, now, find this book and read it today? Am I crazy? You decide (after you read the book).

P.S. Skip this film. Jane Fonda’s Stepford Wives’ perfection ruins a movie that needed its female beauty defined by wrinkles and gray hair, and an aging, infirm body.… show more.

You open a novel and begin reading. The author’s voice draws you into a story that leaves you feeling bereft at the end because it’s over. Wanting more, you read all the writer’s other titles, then reread the first one again.

Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool is such a book, despite its eponymous main character, the aging loser, sixty-year-old Donald Sullivan, someone whose life is such a mess that his landlord, Miss Beryl, once Sully’s eighth grade teacher, is the only one harboring any hope he may yet redeem himself.

From such unpromising material, Russo crafts an engaging story that has the reader as often laughing as tearing up. An added plus, a Doberman Pinscher named Ralph has a starring role in the novel’s satisfying conclusion.

P.S. This is one time I recommend seeing a film before reading the book simply for the pure pleasure of having in your head as… show more.

I was profoundly moved by this painful-redemptive story of a young girl navigating her dysfunctional family. To discover the world through her thoughts plunged me into a frighting life of loss and danger and confusion. Yet it is the voice of this character that attracts me with her fierceness and determination.

I was stunned by the writing and had to pause and re-read parts to get the incredible revelations subtly slid into sentences. Ellen Foster is an unforgettable character. 

This book was one of my primary go-to’s when I was writing my own book, Citizen Canine. It’s an in-depth exploration of the changing status of cats and dogs throughout American history, and it’s fascinating. Chock-full of photos and great anecdotes, it’s a must for anyone who wants to take a deep dive into the American history of pets. 

I recently met the author at a writing workshop. He was my facilitator—he did an excellent job! What’s more, after the week of reading and critiquing each other’s fictional stories I decided to read this book. Wow! Beautifully written. The stories are sometimes shocking, sometimes sad but always worth the time! I feel lucky to have met this author and have had him help me improve my first novel which I'm completing now. 

Shulem Deen grew up in the culture of Hassidic Judaism in New York City. With limited education and awkward English, he decides to explore the world beyond the insular community in which he has lived his entire life. Despite warnings from his wife and recriminations from his community, he eventually decides to leave and seek a new life for which his previous existence has left him completely unprepared. I’m intrigued that a person has the courage to push the boundaries of his existence even though no one in his family or community supports him.

This book is filled with fascinating facts about medieval medicine, surgery, humoural theory, disease, and diagnosis. But what is surprising is how many other aspects of the Middle Ages are covered through the theme of bodies.

We learn about strange creatures like blemmyae (who have no heads and faces in their chests) and cynocephali (dog-headed people), saints and relics, race relations and politics, manuscript manufacture, religion, literature, travel, eating habits, love, sexuality, and gender identity.

I love how the chapters are organized by body part, from head to feet, a clever approach I have never seen in a history book before. Hartnell demonstrates how the medieval past is "an uncanny place at once startlingly different from and strangely familiar to our own."