Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth)

In this heartrending memoir, novelist Zusak (The Book Thief) recounts his family’s love affair with three rowdy rescue dogs: Reuben, Archer, and Frosty. Writing after the last of the three died, Zusak—on the advice of his wife, Mika—processes his grief on the page, beginning with the couple’s adoption of Reuben in 2009 and ending with Archer’s death in 2021. In the middle is a hilarious and occasionally harrowing tale of how not to train incorrigible canines; Zusak’s dogs bite a piano teacher, break the author’s knee, and, in one particularly upsetting section, kill the family cat. Zusak offsets all the mayhem with poignant passages about more peaceful times with the animals, during which he wrote novels, played with his children, and ran on the beach with the dogs, “just us and rawest water.” When it’s time to chronicle each one’s death, Zusak pulls no punches, conveying the depths of misery that come with seeing a pet to the end of its life. With a soft heart and a fluid pen, Zusak delivers an elegy for three misfit creatures that will resonate even with those who’ve never picked up a leash. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Jan.)