Chrissie's Books

Before reading:
Maybe what happens in this book is difficult, but I have the feeling it will have a hopeful message. I need to read something with dogs. You can rely on dogs being there for you when you need them. After the last book read I am so depressed with people.

On completion:
This book did the trick. You ask me how a book where the husband is hit by a car (in April 2000), has near fatal brain damage and comes to permanently loose his short-term memory can be anything but depressing? I will tell you why. It is for two reasons, no maybe three. First of all the author adjusts and learns to live with what has happened; she continues to be there for her husband and at the same time acknowledges her own need to live a good life. And she succeeds. She shares a wonderful life with her husband until his death, albeit not one she would ever have imagined. Secondly, the book is wonderful because it is very well written. Some lines will make you laugh. Some lines express a thought just so perfectly. Thirdly, the book is interesting. You will learn of Outsider Art, and I promise you the chapter "Edward Batterman Sleeps at Home" will have you seriously reconsidering what we know today of how the brain functions! This book is anything but depressing - there is an appreciation of life, there are lines you want to memorize and there is aroused curiosity to learn more.

There are so many lines I should quote, but here are just a few:

Once in a while Rich says something that takes my breath away: "I feel like a tent that wants to be a kite, tugging at my stakes," he said one day, out of a clear blue sky. He was lying in a hospital bed, but his eyes were joyous. (page 162)

You must remember one could not talk with Rich. He was psychotic. He could be ragingly violent.


Here is a sentence about art and writing, about creativity:

I didn't start writing until I was forty-seven. I had always wanted to write but thought you needed a degree, or membership in a club nobody had asked me to join. I thought God had to touch you on the forehead. I thought you needed to have something specific to say, something important, and I thought you needed all that laid out from git-go.It was a long time before I realized that you don't have to start right, you just have to start. Put pen to paper.... (page 149)

In this book there are gardening scenes that will have you laughing, there are eye-openers about survivor's guilt and there are of course those events we who love dogs will immediately recognize: how do you break up a dog fight. Here is some advice that I found rather amusing:

Grab the haunches of the smaller dog and pull. Or grab the haunches of the larger dog and pull. Forget about being bitten. Or consider what your friend Claudette did in this situation and recall her words for their comic relief. "I screamed and threw a paper towel at them."

Carry a water pistol at all times filled with some repellent liquid....Tear gas. Wear an earsplitting whistle around your neck. Have handy a coffee can filled with coins to shake at them.....

Try another approach. At the slightest sign of an escalating growl, get up and leave the room. This is called "removing yourself from the equation" and try to remember what this has to do with mathematics. Fail. Discover that when you are gone they lost interest in fighting and wonder whether everything is always your fault. (pages 67 and 69)


Sure, give me a break. ALWAYS carry that whistle or have the coffee can stuffed in your pocket?! If you are a dog lover you will love this book. I am not allowed to have Oscar in our bed anymore..... She gets to have all three with her, cuddled up next to her in bed. Hmmph. I am jealous, but she knows too she is lucky. Did you hear what I just said?

Have you finished a depressing book? Do you want to be cheered up? Pick this book.