Endearing when its narrator decidedly is not, the latest from Herman (Missing
) takes a rather stiff, lonely, mid-40s Midwestern tenured professor of English poetry and gives her the canine humanizing treatment. Having drunk too much wine one night while surfing the Net, Jill (or "J.T. Rosen," as she is known professionally) comes across a dog-adoption site run by a do-gooder named Bill, who relinquishes a dog to her almost reluctantly. She names the puppy Phil, after men she has loved and lost. Worry over Phil's well-being and midnight walks soon have their effect; Jill warms to her students at the university (where she is known as Her Royal Highness) and to her brother, Norman, who teaches at a more glamorous institution and has "a sports car [his] wife and children could not fit into." She even stops mourning her soul-crushing move from New York and is cured of her insomnia. Phil chases away her "limping, broken, bitter night thoughts," and teaches her, more than writing poetry or teaching have, to be patient: "The kind of patient she had never been with any human being." It's a straight-up recounting of animal therapy, but Herman brings it off with grace and humor. (Mar.)
FYI
: Also due in March from Herman is
The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood (Nebraska).
