Publishers Weekly
05/24/2021
Shaw debuts with a beautiful paean to dogs in this touching memoir recounting the canines who changed her life. When she and her husband Matt put their 15-year-old wolfdog Booker to sleep in 2015, she reckoned with the fact that “I’ve always felt safest, among the soft, oystered muzzles of dogs.” After a year of mourning with her family, she decided to spend a week in what she refers to as the “Dog House”—alone with her two cats and two dogs, “where I can be less human for a while, more beast”—while her husband and kids went on vacation. In heartbreaking, lyrical prose, she meditates on the dogs “that shepherded me into adulthood,” motherhood, and her decade of “hard-earned” marriage. Her first dog, an Afghan hound named Easy, was considered less a pet than a sibling to Shaw, who grew up an only child. When Easy died early of cancer, her family cycled through dogs, including two terriers named Agatha. However, Shaw’s story never strays far from Booker and his “lion-sized heart,” and the ways he taught her bravery and strength in the face of great loss. “He was my baby-dog-nonhuman-person-wolf. We were, every one of us in that house, in love.” Dog lovers, take note and grab some tissues. (July)
From the Publisher
"Shaw, mourning the death of a beloved canine companion, looks to the dogs of her past to understand how they added to her life. Her section on 'being the dog' in relationships is unlike anything you’ve read about our four-legged friends." - Washington Post
"This poignant and gracefully written memoir amply embraces the complexities of the human-dog relationship in a uniquely personal way, and it’s also a moving story of self-acceptance. A dog lover’s warmhearted delight." - Kirkus
"Shaw debuts with a beautiful paean to dogs in this touching memoir recounting the canines who changed her life.... In heartbreaking, lyrical prose, she meditates on the dogs 'that shepherded me into adulthood,' motherhood, and her decade of “hard-earned” marriage.... Dog lovers, take note and grab some tissues."—Publishers Weekly
"Shaw's language is lyrical and contemplative, whether relating small moments of intimacy or big feelings. This is a quiet, heartfelt, and memorable work that cuts right to the quick of the unique bond between dogs and their people.... 'What is a dog?' she asks, 'Maybe a dog is a second chance.' And lucky for us humans, and much like those ever-forgiving canines, we get those second chances again, and again, and again." - Booklist
"What Is a Dog? is a tender memoir that showcases the vulnerable self we often risk revealing only to our pets.... [This] sensitive recollection of a lifetime of anxiety and curiosity will invite readers to examine their own insecurities and to find acceptance in the process." - BookPage
"[A]n elegant memoir... a heart-rending and heartwarming tale that will resonate with just about any mom out there." - The Washington Post
"In What Is a Dog?, Chloe Shaw tells the story of her life — laced with loss, loneliness, and love — through the lens of her dogs' lives.... At every step along the way, Shaw relates more closely to her dogs than she does to other people — than she does even to herself. The quiet triumph of this deeply felt, lyrical memoir is Shaw's willingness to confront those things that scare her about being a human... and break through to the other side, a place where she can find her inner strength, her toughness."—Kristin Iversen, Refinery29
"This book is for anyone who has ever loved a dog." - John Irving
"A beautifully written book with insights about dogs, life, and living fully." - Lynne Cox, author of Swimming In The Sink: Episode of the Heart
"What Is a Dog? is at once a finely observed and wrenchingly tender tribute to a spectacularly beloved and lovable dog, a penetratingly smart meditation on what dogs mean to us, and a stirring account of one woman’s transformation. Chloe Shaw demonstrates how a lifetime of high-functioning efficiency in the face of pervasive if covert anxiety, and a tendency to stand on the periphery of joy, can nonetheless lead to a hard-won position as a fully present soulmate, mother and writer, if we only allow ourselves to learn from those dogs who offer themselves as our shelter and uplift and gateway, and who with their unapologetic need and effortless grace show us how to be our best selves." - Jim Shepard, National Book Award finalist
"In What Is A Dog?, Shaw deftly captures how the deepest parts of our humanity are revealed in the company of our four-legged friends." - Lee Montgomery, award-winning author of The Things Between Us and contributor to WOOF!: Writers on Dogs
Kirkus Reviews
2021-06-01
In her first book, Shaw reflects on the meaning of canine companionship and how dogs transformed her life.
After the family dog, Booker, died, a grieving Shaw began contemplating not only what her beloved canine did for her, but also the fears that had been her constant companions. The author was an only child, and her mother's Afghan hound, Easy, became her first “Dog-Sister” and helped her navigate the space between loving parents who avoided strong emotions. Later, a Scottie named Agatha 2 became the first canine to get “lodged in my heart.” The pair grew so attached that the author herself was almost indistinguishable from Agatha 2, with relationships to her “humans” that mirrored those her Scottie had with them. Yet Agatha 2 could not save Shaw from the anxiety that gnawed her from within and manifested as “horribly ravaged fingernails” in an otherwise well-groomed adolescence. Her first teenage love, Josh, taught her how to intimately know herself but caused her guilt for spending time away from an aging Agatha 2. Her dog’s death coincided with a cancer diagnosis for Josh’s mother and high school graduation. Shaw decided to break up with Josh, and when she fell in love again, it would be with her future husband and Booker, a dog she realized had united the “Dog, Girl, Woman, Wife, Mother,” only to shatter her with his death. “Just as Booker’s life so exquisitely fused my separate selves,” she writes, “Booker’s death left me splintered all over again.” Forced to confront her anxiety, Shaw came to understand that the only way to remain whole was to “let in the dogs” of her own fears and feelings. This poignant and gracefully written memoir amply embraces the complexities of the human-dog relationship in a uniquely personal way, and it’s also a moving story of self-acceptance.
A dog lover’s warmhearted delight.
