Dog Years is poet Mark Doty’s story of his two dogs, Arden and Beau, and their shared joys and sorrows.
Mark and Arden are living alone with Mark’s lover Wally, who is dying of AIDS, when Mark decides to get another dog. It’s really the last thing they needed, at that point.
In Doty’s words:
My friends think I’ve lost my mind. You’re taking care of a man who can’t get out of bed, and you’re adopting a golden retriever? They do have a point, but there’s a certain dimension of experience at which the addition of any other potential stress simply doesn’t matter anymore. Oh, say the already crazed, why not?
Beau comes into a home filled with sorrow, and makes his own place in it. Together, Beau and Arden provide comfort and companionship to the dying Wally, and consolation and distraction to the bereaved Doty.
A year after Wally dies, Paul becomes a part of the family, and the two dogs and two men share some adventures in Provincetown and on the road. But dog’s years pass more quickly than our own, and both dogs develop health problems, and eventually die, first Beau, and after a long, slow, heartbreaking decline, finally Arden. Loss is everywhere in this book, not just in the lives of the author and his dogs, but in the world around them. They are living in Manhattan on September 11, and Doty provides a powerful portrait of the city during those dark days.
But ultimately, this is a book about hope and courage, friendship and love, and the special bond between dogs and their people.
I especially love the cover of this book — a soft, hazy photograph of the two dogs, Arden and Beau, walking together up a snowy Provincetown street, walking away from the camera, off into the distance, like a dream, like a memory.
Links :
- Mark Doty — The author’s website
- Howl — New York Times book review by Danielle Chapman
- ‘Dog Years’: Best friends, joy and heartbreak — Review from USA Today
